For Katie Sadie, owner of Rooney's shop in Hamilton, nothing beats looking through the waist-level viewfinder of a Pentax 67. "It's better than real life." A long-time freelance photographer, who studied fashion photography in school, Sadie says there's something about film that smartphones and digital cameras can't capture.
It's a feeling more Hamiltonians seem to be sharing. Like the rise of vinyl a decade ago, film photography is having a renaissance. In the last few years, it's hit Hamilton.
Katie Sadie studied fashion photography and freelanced as a photographer for 15 years before opening Rooney's in Hamilton. (Eva Salinas/CBC) Just look at Sadie's business. Her coffee shop on Main Street East, Rooney's, serves as a hub for creatives and artists, with a focus on photography.
There are photography books on the shelves, and a regularly rotating display of local shots on the wall, many of them done on film. As of this week, it's now also a place you can send your undeveloped camera rolls. The store, which only opened in 2022, has grown in popularity, to the point that independent film labs started reaching out to Sadie about a partnership.
Rooney's partnered with Toronto-based Graination this week to install a film drop box. Hamilton photographers can drop their film canisters off to be developed in Toronto and returned the next week. (Eva Salinas/CBC) The first was Toronto-based Graination, which this week placed a drop box for film canisters inside.
Customers can drop of.