Jouissance: noun: physical or intellectual pleasure or delight. For instance that engendered by engaging in the art of taking photographs, of capturing moments, the time spent behind the camera...

The bit I really enjoy about photography, the part that gives me jouissance if you like, is being behind the camera visualising, then framing and taking photographs; walking about, camera in hand, lost in the moment, snapping what comes to me.

From that point of view, digital camera technology provides a high degree of instant gratification in being able to see immediately what I have just taken. This is mixed in with, I have to say, an obstructive measure of technical complexity that gets in the ways of me actually getting the pictures I actually want but at the same time allowing me to carelessly blast away at all and sundry without constraint.

What comes later brings with it the unfortunate digital overload of post processing. It sticks me in front of my iMac for hours on end as I sort through large quantities of images to then spend ages post processing and refining my chosen few "keeper" pictures. It's just what I don’t need, I have better things to with my day. It's a chore and not at all fun.

Then there is the world of film photography. A discipline that the majority would consider dead and indeed forgotten - and yet. Being out and about with a 35mm film camera like my Contax G2 makes me much more considered about what I am photographing and how I photograph it.

With only 36 shots per roll and at £1+ a picture for a fully developed and high resolution professionally scanned image (this figure includes the original cost of the film) this concentrates my mind a lot. I am also unable to see what I have taken until the results come back, post development and scan, so I focus on getting things right first time 'in camera' encouraging me to be a better photographer.

The benefits of this in post are also immense. The hi-res scans that are returned to me need very little processing (usually one pass through Radiant on default settings) and that's it; joy! It is a very different way of working with the emphasis back where it belongs, being out and about making photographs, giving me the maximum jouissance.