The photography war between analogue and digital may have been all but decided in favour of the newcomer, but practitioners of large-format photography are holding back the digital assault with some very tangible, very large-calibre shells. 

Despite the advances in technology, it’s generally agreed that an old-timey bellows camera loaded up with four-by-five-inch frames of film is still going to resolve a lot more detail than most new-timey contraptions, no matter how many ones and zeros they may have at their disposal.

Film may be holding out qualitatively but, watching this short-form documentary about photographer Joseph Allen Freeman, it’s certainly less convenient. But damn if that doesn’t mean the craft, with all its exhausting mechanics, wins again. That is, unless a DSLR purchased on Amazon can make you a handsome, cigarette-smoking font of coarsely ground wisdom. Which, honestly, it probably can’t.