Jate: ‘Make film photography great again!’

When Time Out Bangkok released its first-ever digital cover, it didn’t scream for attention. No neon overlays, no overly filtered drama. Just a quiet, deliberate choice: film. Not as an aesthetic gimmick, but as a statement. Shot by STYLEdeJATE (Jate Pokmangmee) – co-founder of Fotoclub BKK and something of a household name in Bangkok’s analogue photography circles.

In an age of instant everything, choosing to shoot on film is a refusal. A refusal of convenience, of perfection, of the compulsive need to edit life into something shinier than it is. It was, in many ways, the perfect medium for this moment.

Behind the lens was a man who’s spent the last decade treating photography less like a trend and more like a language. Through Fotoclub BKK, Jate has been quietly building a space where the practice of image-making isn’t just preserved, but deeply felt – one 36-frame roll at a time.

A click worth considering

Our shoot, fittingly, was done entirely on film. Not for aesthetic posturing or vintage cosplay, but to say, plainly, ‘this still matters’. Analogue, with its grain and limitations, has crept back from the brink and is now quietly mounting a comeback. Not ironic, not retro – just right.

‘You only get 36 shots,’ Jate told me, without a hint of lament.

You can’t go around pressing the shutter like it doesn’t cost anything. You have to think. And when you think, it becomes something else entirely.

It’s not about purism, nor the fetishisation of imperfection. It’s about restraint – a word rarely associated with digital culture. A roll of film, unlike your iPhone’s bottomless gallery, doesn’t tolerate the redundant. It’s a limited resource, and therefore, inherently, precious.

“The limitations, that’s what gives film its value. It’s a law of nature.”

The new old school

You could say Jate is Bangkok’s analogue whisperer – the kind of person who can explain the emotional weight of ISO in a way that makes you want to throw your DSLR into the Chao Phraya. But it’s not just nostalgia he’s dealing in. Fotoclub BKK, which he co-founded in the slightly crumbling but ever-cool Charoenkrung district, has become less of a shop and more of a sanctuary.

Technically, it’s a film lab. But that feels like calling a cathedral a building with pews. There’s a studio, workshops, exhibitions, the occasional cafe-dweller who seems to be developing their own auteur theory over a long black. It’s not exclusive either – locals mix with expats, hobbyists with professionals, people who’ve just bought their first point-and-shoot with those who could develop film in their sleep.

‘Some of them send us ten rolls at a time,’ Jate laughed. ‘They’re not playing around.’

Familiar faces often pass through Fotoclub BKK’s doors, from PK (Pasakorn Vanasirikul) of The Face Men Thailand fame to Danny (Daniel Trujillo), co-founder of BKK.Collective, who regularly joins the club’s gatherings and shares his film captures on his Instagram, filmjuntz. There’s also Ola Allouz, co-founder of Foto.UAE in Dubai, who makes it a point to join in whenever she’s in town. Some don’t even live in the city – they just trust Jate’s team enough to mail their film halfway across the world.

“It’s not a trend. It’s a culture. And one that refuses to be flattened by Instagram filters or apps that promise ‘film-like’ tones with the push of a button.”

Slow is the new fast

We like our culture quick these days. Scroll, swipe, shoot. The faster, the better. Except, curiously, not here.

Fotoclub BKK hosts something called the ‘Photo Walk,’ which is exactly what it sounds like – a group of people walking through the streets of Charoenkrung, cameras in hand, minds attuned to whatever theme they’ve been given. One month it might be architectural details, another, local street food. Sometimes it’s strictly black-and-white. There are rules. And rules, it turns out, are oddly liberating.

“It forces you to look, and not just at your screen.”

In a way, it’s a gentle rebellion. Against speed. Against sameness. Against the numbing ease of snapping without seeing. In film, there’s no instant preview, no ‘delete and try again’. There’s only the moment you pressed the shutter and whatever followed after.

The beauty of it? You often don’t know what you’ve got until days later. That uncertainty is part of the magic – or the madness, depending on how you frame it.

Post, click, develop

At Fotoclub BKK, the film lab experience is part analogue ritual, part modern convenience. You can submit your rolls online, customise scan settings and even mail film in from overseas – no fuss, no flimsy labels.

Despite the global price hike in film stock, the lab keeps things accessible. ‘If it becomes exclusive, what’s the point?’ Jate says. Fairness, not elitism, seems to guide the model.

Beyond the frame

But Jate isn’t just romanticising celluloid. He’s building something – something bigger than bokeh and decent light.

‘Film is just the starting point,’ he said. 

“What we’re really trying to do is make space for people to connect. To think. To create something they’re proud of.”

The goal was never to become a commercial powerhouse. In fact, you get the feeling Jate would rather lose a sale than compromise the ethos. Fotoclub BKK hasn’t pivoted towards what’s marketable. It’s grown, instead, like a darkroom print – slowly, with care, in unexpected directions. Now it’s an ecosystem. A small, beautifully imperfect community where the value of an image isn’t measured by likes, but by intent.

“We want people to come and stay. Not just drop off their film and leave,’ he told me. ‘This isn’t a transaction. It’s a conversation.”

It may sound lofty, especially in an era where photos disappear faster than they’re taken. But here, the shutter still matters. And somehow, in this quiet revival of light and grain, film has become radical again.