The Shutter Speed of Attention
How Film Photography Saved Me From Digital Addiction
My first dose of Adderall blew me away! It was like someone turning on lights in a room that I didn’t know was dark. I was fifty three years old, diagnosed with ADHD and suddenly I could see through the mental smog that had been there my entire life.
For a few days, I grieved. All my struggles and failures scrolled past—every missed opportunity, every misunderstood instruction, every comment made like “lazy” or “distracted” or “irreverent”. My life could have been different. The sadness was visceral.
Then something unexpected happened: joy. And a clarity about what had been destroying my attention long before I understood my brain’s spaghetti code.
The Digital Trap I Built Myself
I’m an IT project manager. I’ve spent almost thirty years building systems, managing migrations, optimizing workflows. I was an adult before the internet went public, before cell phones were small enough to carry, and before digital cameras. I remember what slowness felt like. Let’s be honest, even early tech was painfully slow; 4 minutes to see every pixel paint on the monitor until the full image was visible?
But somewhere along the way, I became what I built.
My first digital camera was a Nikon D70s—6.2 megapixels that seemed to parallel film. Then came the gear trap. Higher megapixels. Faster autofocus. Film simulations. I was never satisfied with images straight out of camera anymore. I turned to Lightroom, presets, LUTs, spending hours in the digital darkroom—another reason to be a slave to my desk and someone’s software.
Photography led to writing on the computer. Composing music on the computer. My job in IT—all screens, all day. When I’d finally had enough, I’d retire to streaming services and my cell phone.
I was managing systems all day and being managed by them all night. Something had to give.
What I Found in the Fog
After the Adderall kicked in, I made a choice. I pulled out my old Nikon F3HP—the manual film camera I’d used in middle school—and made my way back into the world.
Film cameras are not convenient. You can load film wrong. You don’t get immediate feedback, so you only discover bad shots after the roll is developed. Film costs have gone up considerably. Even a home darkroom setup is no longer cheap.
But here’s what film gives me that digital never could: It gave me my attention back.
Slow: Street Photography on the Bus Downtown
Last year, I took the bus downtown with one intention: capture something real. People, buildings, interactions, morning light filtering through Cleveland’s industrial bones.
Before I left, I preset everything. Shutter speed no less than 1/125th of a second. Hyperfocal distance on my lens so I know the range of distance that will be in focus. F-stop set by holding my hand in sunlight until the meter reads dead center. (Off topic, but do you know that the 18% middle grey used for light meters is based on white skin color? - More systemic racism - another post perhaps)
This setup gets me as close to automatic as a manual camera can be. I can bring the viewfinder to my eye, click, and know there’s a solid chance of getting something workable.
But while this is slow compared to an endless storage digital “spray-and-pray”, it’s not as slow as I can go. I have gone slower and with more intentional awareness.
Slower: 8x10 Large Format in the Arizona Desert
It’s early morning in Skull Valley, Arizona. The sun hasn’t risen yet. I’m standing off the main road in a wash with my 8x10 bellows camera—a beast of meal and wood that looks like it belongs in a turn of the century episode of Boardwalk Empire.
I loaded only four film backs before I left Phoenix on my treck up the 17. That means a maximum of eight exposures for the entire trip. Eight chances. That’s it.
I’ve already scouted this location on a prior trip—studied where the sun will rise, how light will lay on the rocks, what frame might matter to someone looking at the print. Three other photographers are here, each with their own gear. My tripod is up. Camera leveled. Viewfinder cleaned of dust.
I frame toward my subject. Set focus as best I can in the dark. Pull the black blanket over my head, grab the loupe hanging around my neck, dial in the focus a fraction more. F-stop set. Focus on infinity. There’s a cactus halfway to the mountains—my middle ground. The foothills have interesting peaks for background.
We’re nearing dawn. Light meters come out against the golden desert chill.
The moment arrives. We all begin shooting.
It takes me fifteen minutes to shoot all eight exposures.
The Waiting Is the Point
Back home, I head straight to my bathroom-turned-darkroom. Negatives must be in complete darkness until they’re through the developer. I let them dry while I make a snack, check in with Tina, sit in silence for a bit.
Two hours later, I return. On my makeshift light table, I select the best couple of exposures.
The process to create the final print could fill another essay. But you get the idea.
What Film Taught Me About ADHD and Attention
Here’s what I didn’t expect: film photography works even better now that I have addressed my ADHD.
While in full distraction, I was constantly seeking stimulation—checking, refreshing, optimizing, upgrading. Digital cameras fed that perfectly. Infinite shots. Instant feedback. Immediate gratification. The dopamine hit of seeing the image right away.
Film does the opposite. It forces me to wait. To limit. To trust what I saw in the viewfinder without needing to check.
At 1/60th of a second, the shutter opens and closes before thought can interfere. My body has to know what to do. My hands set the exposure. My eye finds the frame. There’s no algorithm suggesting improvements, no infinite retakes, no stream for Instagram.
It’s the same discipline as my 5:00AM Quaker silence practice—showing up, being present, trusting what emerges when I stop controlling the outcome.
The Meaning I Found in Limitation
I’m not saying everyone should shoot film. I’m not impugning digital photographers or phone photography. Photography has been democratized.
But for me—someone who built systems for a living and then got trapped inside them, someone whose ADHD brain craves stimulation and novelty, someone who lost the ability to just see without performing seeing—film photography has given me my attention back.
The slowness isn’t romantic. It’s practical. It’s survival.
When I stand in the Cleveland Flats with my F3HP, loading Tri-X in the cold, advancing the film with that satisfying mechanical click, hearing the mirror flap, I’m choosing limitation as a spiritual practice.
And in that limitation, I can finally see clearly. I now apply all of it to my writing, my music, my work, and my relationships.