Portfolio: Film stars

Though many of us exchanged our 35mm compact film cameras for digital long ago, the unique characteristics of analogue film continue to exert a hold on purists – among them, a certain Cosimo d'Aprano.

As one of the trio behind traditional-print company Labyrinth Photographic, D'Aprano works with some of the best young contemporary photographers in the business, their projects ranging in subject matter from the Arab Spring to fashion features. But what does D'Aprano believe film has that digital does not?

"Digital photographers take too many images without thinking," he muses, "while shooting with actual rolls of film is much slower; it's a more studied process."

To mark Labyrinth's first anniversary, it is holding an exhibition entitled A Year in Development to showcase the work of artists such as Laura Pannack (top left). Shot in large format, Pannack's work highlights another benefit of film: "If you are just posting your mug on Facebook, a camera phone suffices. But if you want to print out something larger, you'd need 800 megapixels to match the quality of images shot on large-format film – a figure currently impossible using digital.

"But most of all, I prefer film because, unlike digital, things happen in the development process that you didn't dream of – that's where the magic lies."

A Year in Development is exhibiting at Four Corners, London E2 until 2 March (labyrinthphotographic.co.uk)