Roll Call: Only 36 shots, no instant results: Inside India's growing film photography revival

As film photography makes a comeback in India, a new ecosystem is taking shape. Abdul Haleem Sherif trains his lens on the people keeping it relevant.

In the age of instant photos, analogue photography might seem like an anachronism. Yet it can’t click versions of the moment. You must frame the shot, wind the roll, and click. And you get only 36 tries to get it right. Even then, you won't know the result for days or weeks.

And yet, people are choosing this slower, more deliberate route. After years in which digital photography pushed film to the margins, enthusiasts in India began rediscovering the medium in the past few years. What followed was a revival of the businesses, communities, and practices around analogue photography.


From family studios and new labs to suppliers, collectors, hobbyists, and city-based groups, we look at how everyone is trying to keep the roll moving.

A Family Frame & Studio Visual Theatre

For Deepak Gakhar, 54, the family business began long before him. His grandfather set up Ashoka Studio and Lab in New Delhi's Chandni Chowk in 1954 after the family moved from pre-partition Multan. When Gakhar joined in 1990, his first day involved developing 1,500 rolls. Today, the studio processes 150–250 rolls in a month. "Professionals have by and large moved away from analogue," he says.

The studio also digitises old negatives and video cassettes. Of late, film has been finding its way back to him. Rolls arrive from Ranchi, Jaipur, Dehradun, and small towns in Uttar Pradesh, sent by solo film practitioners for processing. A service that once cost less than Rs 10 for developing and scanning now charges around Rs 600.

It's cheaper to develop your own rolls, as Suneha Hameed discovered, after she inherited her grandfather's film camera. An architect by profession, Hameed set up her own dark room in 2018. She bulk orders chemicals from the US, accumulates rolls over six months, and processes them herself. It costs her about ₹150–200 per roll and gives her greater control over the final image.

Reel Problems

Vivek Mariappan started experimenting with film in 2018. Just weeks before the Covid-19 lockdown, he joined Srishti Digi Life, the official distributor of Kodak and Ilford in India, as product head for analogue. After a sharp post-pandemic spike in demand, sales softened in 2022–23, with the rising cost of imported film emerging as a major hurdle.

Even so, Mariappan estimates that 70% of film sales in India move through official distribution channels. His next focus is making film-processing chemicals more accessible and affordable.

"A branded Kodak film roll goes for Rs 1,200– 2,000. Kodak has raised its prices about four or five times in the last two years." — Vivek Mariappan, head of analogue, Srishti Digi Life

Most "new" colour films are repackaged Kodak cinema stock, chemically stripped and reprocessed to run through ordinary photo labs. In India, a roll of film costs well over Rs 1,200– 3,500.

A Growing Community

Varun Gupta, who has been shooting film since the age of eight, co-founded the Chennai Photo Biennale (CPB) Foundation to bring some structure to a scattered and unorganised ecosystem. Under CPB Darkroom, he manages film sales, a community darkroom, and a commercial lab.

Its respooling business, which cuts bulk motion picture rolls into smaller cans, has helped bring the cost of film to less than ₹100 per roll. "When we started, we were the only ones here to organise this space. Now there are more players, whether it's respooling or labs. The community is growing," says Gupta.

"We now see film-curious people coming in, people who had never shot film before, as there was no film when they were growing up. It's not necessarily people coming back for nostalgia, they're coming to discover an experience that they've only heard about." — Varun Gupta, co-founder, Chennai Photo Biennale

The Social Side of Film

The community is growing, thanks to social media. Sarang Joshi, originally a nutritionist, discovered film in 2021. He soon set up Lazy Film Lab in Mumbai, a community of film photography enthusiasts. Joshi, who hails from Nagpur, used to send rolls to Kolkata to develop before teaching himself to do it at home.

Friends began sending him their rolls, followed by photographers from other cities. Joshi now brews his own chemicals instead of relying on branded kits that are harder to source. "It's sort of like Breaking Bad," he laughs. With a team of eight or nine people, the lab processes 20–40 rolls per day.

In Bengaluru, Sumanth Shivakumar started Miles on Film to find people from whom he could learn. "Instead of joining a community, I started one," he says.

His first photo walk in 2020 brought together about 12 people. Everyone received the same roll, shot at the same location, after which Shivakumar developed and scanned the photos. The group then discussed their favourite frames, seeing the same place through different eyes. He plans to develop a website as a learning resource for novice film photographers.

Rijul Gupta began his journey at NID in 2024, where a materials and processes course introduced him to film. It also connected him to a family history: His father had developed and printed photographs in a darkroom as an engineering student and kept a 1985 diary on the process. Back in his hometown of Shimla, Gupta turned that fascination into Negative Ghar, opening the darkroom commercially in August 2025. He taught himself colour processing through books, blogs, YouTube, and peers. Gupta also has a sustainability angle: "I try my best not to dispose chemicals directly. I'd rather store them and sundry them."

Social media has helped fuel the revival. If 50 people pick up a film camera after looking at Instagram, I would be happy if even two people fall in love with the process and continue." — Rijul Gupta, founder, Negative Ghar, Shimla

"For our community, film is a format in which people document their other hobbies whether it's travelling, hiking or biking." — Sumanth Shivakumar, founder, Miles on Film, Bengaluru

What Stands Out

- 48% of film-camera buyers are 18–34 years old, a generation with no personal nostalgia for film.

- Leica reissued its M6 in October 2022.

- Pentax's new half-frame film camera, Pentax 17 ($499), sold out within days of its Japan launch.

Keeper of the Light

Much has changed in the 46 years since Aditya Arya began his photography career, but his belief in the physicality of the medium remains intact. At Museo Camera, the museum he founded in Gurugram, visitors encounter vintage cameras and negatives as tangible objects. They can also learn film photography, development, and printing through workshops. His advice to someone shooting their first roll: "Slow down. It'll help you."

His own generation, he says, learnt the importance of discipline because of analogue. There was no delete button or post-processing to rescue an image. That trained them to "think and shoot at the speed of light," he says.

"Museums should help people understand where photography came from, connect it to the present and inspire what comes next." — Aditya Arya, founder, Museo Camera, Gurugram