The Beauty of Imperfections.

"There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."

Every time I look at a frame that should not have worked, the grain too heavy, the focus just off, the light coming in wrong, I think of this line.

Fine art and perfection

Fine dining and fine art share the same problem: when they are made entirely for an audience, they stop being honest.

"All of the things I need for happiness: Low plastic stool, check. Tiny little plastic table, check. Something delicious in a bowl, check."

What is it about the plastic stool and tiny plastic table that is so romantic for Anthony Bourdain? It is romantic for me because it reminds me of my childhood, running around the streets of Ho Chi Minh City chasing the next thing I could eat or playing games in the little alleys with my friends till nightfall, when my parents had to contact every household in the neighbourhood of Xóm Mới to track me down. The plastic stools and tiny tables remind me of the life I once had. But what about Bourdain? Why does this resonate so much with a world-class chef who is experiencing this moment for the first time in his forties?

This is when and where, regardless of your background or origins, all humans connect. Bourdain might not have the same connection to the plastic stool as I do, but it is what the stool represents to him at this point in his life that makes it romantic. A point in his life where he is longing for something authentic, something raw, something as imperfect as the bowl of noodles he is about to receive on the side of the street that is as perfectly delicious as a filet mignon in one of his restaurants.

One of the beauties of imperfection is that it removes the performance. It puts you in contact with something that was not made for an audience. Most of what we scroll past was made for an audience. Most of what we eat was styled for a camera. At some point, the performance replaced the thing itself. Imperfection is how we find our way back.

Photography and the preservation of humanity.

Close your eyes. Imagine it is 2013 and you are in high school. HD TV, 1080 resolution, immediate access to information, instant connection to your friends, tight jeans, American Eagle hoodie, iPhones and iPod touch. Now open your eyes. It is 2026 and kids are shooting 35mm film, buying records, thrifting early 2000s clothing and antique shopping, and asking their parents for analog technology of yesteryear.

This is not nostalgia. Nostalgia is a longing for something you have actually lived. An eighteen-year-old picking up a film camera for the first time has no memory of that era. You cannot be nostalgic for something you never experienced.

This is not humanity going backwards either. It is humanity moving forward in search of something real, something that resists being optimised before it reaches you. There is a hunger, in a generation raised entirely inside digital systems, for a process that has weight and consequence and cannot be undone. Something that makes you feel connected to a moment rather than a feed. That is what film does. Not because it is old, but because it is honest.

Why we shoot film

And this is why we shoot film. It's the process, it's the struggle, it's the delayed gratification, and it's the imperfect nature of the outcome along with the process itself. This is what we have learned to find beauty in.

Unlike mindlessly pointing your phone at a beautiful scene and tapping the screen, film forces you to think, to tap into your creativity, your individualism, to create something that is uniquely a representation of you, either through the process of creating the frame or through the outcome of the final product. It represents us. It allows us to understand ourselves and make a connection to others. And regardless of the outcome, if we nailed exposure or not, how grainy the photo might be, if there's a light leak, etc. we will always have the moment where we were truly connected with ourselves and our surroundings, the moment where we tapped into our own thoughts and creativity. We will always be there, truly present.

What film taught me

Shooting film is slower, more expensive, and more uncertain than anything a phone can do. You shoot and you wait, and sometimes pray. Some frames will not work. Some rolls will be ruined entirely. There is no playback, no undo, no second take. By every practical measure, it is the worse choice.

But the constraint is the point. Thirty-six frames on a roll changes how you raise the camera. The fact that you cannot see what you have changes how much attention you give to what is in front of you. The mechanical object that could fail at any moment makes you feel connected to the process in a way that something frictionless and digital does not. The limitation is not a flaw in the system. It is the beauty of the system.

Imperfection is also where you learn gratitude. Film has taught me to appreciate its imperfections and through this, learn to appreciate the imperfections of life and all of its processes. There is no perfect moment, so stop chasing the perfect frame. The frame that is accidentally double-exposed turns out to be one of the most interesting frames you ever make. But if you only focus on how that frame is ruined, you will never learn to appreciate its imperfect nature, nor the process you went through to capture it in the first place.

The imperfection is the information

The "crack" for Cohen and the plastic stool for Bourdain is the light leak for us photographers. It's the moments when we forgot to raise the shutter speed and as a result, capture beautiful movement. So, I implore you to appreciate each and every frame you take, the moment in which you took it, and its perfectly imperfect outcome.