Film photography has recently regained popularity among teens as a candid way to document memories. Juniors Max Holdhusen, Brady Alderson and Anthony Messina have hopped on this trend starting their very own film account, Before Attraction.

“Before Attraction is a creative group that me and Brady made up [around] a year and a half ago at Great Wolf Lodge,” Holdhusen said. “Honestly, there’s not a set in stone subject that our group does — it’s just the three of us taking pictures and having fun.”

The group thought it would be a fun idea to have a film camera for the summer and were inspired by Odd Future, Tyler the Creator’s group of friends, to take an abstract yet catchy approach when it came to their name.

“Me and Brady thought of ‘Before Attraction’ because we saw it on a sign at Great Wolf Lodge and I thought it sounded like Odd Future,” Holdhusen said. “I remember the sign because we were about to go into a water slide, and it said ‘before the attraction’ and listed the steps — I don’t know, I thought it sounded cool.”

Typically, they post their film in collections, including the film roll number and location where the photos were taken in the description.

“I [also] want to start doing different types of cameras,” Holdhusen said. “I have my film camera, a digital camera and a polaroid. I can put those on Instagram to say, ‘polaroid pictures, number one, and then the film location,’ and do a variety of those [kinds of] pictures — I think it’d be so cool.”

When creating content for their group, they prefer to keep it spontaneous by simply bringing the camera along for the adventure.

“My favorite [photos] are the ones when we go downtown without a plan and just let it roll,” Alderson said. “Sometimes when we try to go too deep into planning, it never turns out as good as we’d hope.”

Switching from digital to film photography was a learning process that took time for them to adjust to.

“Honestly I didn’t know anything about it — the first film roll I ever took was in Brady’s basement, and I pulled it right out of the camera to try to get the film out, but that just ruined the whole thing,” Holdhusen said. “It took me a while to learn how to develop the film.”

Looking into the future, they plan to expand their brand to include videos and clothing, ideally sometime this winter.

“Our idea from the very beginning was to create a YouTube and post sketches and funny stuff,” Holdhusen said. “We made skits in Tiger TV that we could have posted to our YouTube channel, but we never made [it]. Brady and Anthony [also] had the idea to make merch or start a clothing brand because Anthony’s been wanting to do that for a while.”

If you’re thinking about getting into film photography or just want a fun way to document your high school experiences, they encourage you to give it a try.

“It’s really fun to get into,” Holdhusen said. “You should buy a camera and just start taking pictures of things.”