Many photographers have spent the last couple of decades chasing color accuracy. Neutral white balance, faithful skin tones, true-to-life colors have become measuring sticks by which images are judged. Back when I was first learning photography over 25 years ago, when film was still king, I don’t remember color accuracy being a major topic; if it was, you were probably talking about Kodachrome 25. The wildly vivid colors of Velvia 50 were often preferred for landscapes. The warmth of Portra 400 was appreciated for portraits. There were a lot of reasons to choose various films, but color faithfulness was rarely the primary motive. With digital technology, because you can be extraordinarily specific with the white balance and precisely control the colors, which was not possible with analog photography (at least nowhere near the extent possible with digital), there was a movement towards that end; however, the character that each emulsion brought with it was lost in the process.

If you’ve ever looked at an old family photo album with prints from the one-hour photo lab and felt something stir, it probably wasn’t because the colors were accurate or the white balance was spot-on neutral. Because most films were daylight-balanced, color casts were common. Blues could lean cyan, sometimes shadows had a strange warmth that no colorist would approve of today, maybe the whole image was a tad yellowish. Yet those photographs convey feeling. They seem more like memories. In other words, color doesn’t document reality, it interprets it.

This is one of the reasons why Fujifilm resonates with so many photographers. The various Film Simulations, like Velvia, Classic Chrome, Classic Negative, Nostalgic Negative, and Reala Ace (among others), are not intended to be accurate replications of the colors and tones of the scene, but vehicles in which the photographer can convey their interpretation of the scene. Each one carries different emotions, and can tell the story differently. Film Simulation Recipes take it even further, by fine-tuning the aesthetic to more accurately mimic the unique and serendipitous characteristics of analog film. They’re designed to feel a certain way. When color shifts a little, the photograph stops being a record and starts becoming a story.

Modern digital tools make it easy to correct everything. You can neutralize any cast, recover highlights, bend or even change the colors after the fact however you wish, and so much more. When you choose a Recipe, which might have an imperfect white balance and inaccurate color, you’re committing to that character. You’re deciding, before even pressing the shutter release button, how the world should look—not how it technically does—and what the viewers of the photographs should feel. That causes you to be more purposeful in-the-field, because your choices at that time are critical to the outcome of the images.

When you use Recipes on your Fujifilm camera, you aren’t competing with reality; you’re offering an alternative version of it. Perhaps slightly warm, colors a little faded, with an overall softness, and some grainy texture—similar to memory itself. Interestingly, imperfect color often feels more honest because it acknowledges subjectivity. No two people remember the same scene exactly the same way. Why should photographs pretend otherwise? When colors lean or shift, it mirrors how we actually experience the world—not as a fixed reference chart, but as emotions filtered through time. So don’t worry if your whites aren’t truly white or your blue skies aren’t completely sky blue. It’s perfectly fine if they wander a little. It’s ok if your pictures have a color cast. Let your photographs look the way the moment felt, not the way a color checker demands.

When deciding which Film Simulation Recipe to use, consider how the scene will look through the colors of that Recipe, and whether or not it conveys the emotions that you want it to. If it’s not a good match, find one that will do better. With over 400 to choose from in the Fuji X Weekly App, there’s bound to be one that will work well for you and the scene that’s in front of your camera. Each one is different, so pick the Recipe that best conveys the feelings that you want the viewers of your picture to experience with you. Let them see the world as you see it, which might be very different from how others see it.