In photography, nothing stays the same forever. Film stocks come and go, and are revised over time. Processes change. Technology advances. New cameras with fresh features are introduced. New techniques are invented, while old ones are occasionally rediscovered. Styles are constantly evolving. What’s “in” one year might be “out” the next, and maybe back “in” sometime later. Everything evolves as it passes from one person to another. As Austin Kleon famously stated in his book Steal Like An Artist, “Every new idea is just a mashup or a remix of one or more previous ideas.” Film Simulation Recipes are not exempt from this.

Most of the 400+ Fuji X Weekly Film Simulation Recipes are at least loosely inspired by photographic film stocks. Some are more strict replications than others, but none are exactly perfect. They’re constrained by the camera’s hardware and programming—it’s simply not possible to replicate specific films with scientific accuracy straight-out-of-camera, although it’s surprising just how close you can get sometimes. I’ve seen photos online that I thought were my Recipes, but they turned out to be actual film; I’ve seen photos online that I thought were film, but turned out to be one of my Recipes. For the most part, though, you can only get so close because you are working within some strict parameters and limitations (limitations should be viewed positively). Basically, consider Fujifilm Recipes as creative interpretations of analog aesthetics—remixing old ideas with new technologies and processes, sentiments straight from Austin’s book.

According to AI (because I’m not a mathematician), there are 1,418,895,421,643,700 possible unique Fujifilm Recipes on the latest X-series cameras. That’s one quadrillion, four hundred eighteen trillion, eight hundred ninety-five billion, four hundred twenty-one million, six hundred forty-three thousand, seven hundred. When accounting for commonly-used settings, the odds of two people independently creating the same exact Recipe are about one in four billion (apparently, if you ignore all of the least common options—for example, most Monochromatic Color for B&W, etc.—the odds are about 1 in 100 million). My best guesstimate is that roughly 8,000-to-10,000 Recipes have been published on various platforms and websites by Fujifilm photographers, which is amazing—I remember when the Fujifilm Recipe community numbered in the hundreds; now it’s hundreds-of-thousands worldwide! We’re nowhere near scratching the surface of exhausting the possible Recipes for Fujifilm cameras—not even close to a fraction of one percent. There’s lots of room for a lot more.

It’s not uncommon to “season to taste” a Recipe for the specific subject or situation, or for the photographer’s personal taste. I’ve encouraged that for nearly a decade, saying that it’s better to make a small adjustment or two to the Recipe parameters and get it to work well for you than to stubbornly stick with some settings that aren’t quite right. Sometimes those adjustments result in only a subtle change, and sometimes they’re transformative. That’s not a problem whatsoever—it’s progress. The evolution of Recipes occurs in three natural ways.

The first is what I’d call a tweak. This is when someone makes a small adjustment to one or two Recipe parameters. Maybe it’s changing Highlight from -1 to -2, or White Balance from Daylight to Auto, or Grain strength from Strong to Weak. These tweaks don’t replace the original Recipe; they personalize it. It’s just seasoned-to-taste a little for your preferences. A good example of this is Reggie’s Portra, which I will occasionally use with DR400 instead of DR-Auto if there is a bright light source in the scene. That change simply tweaks it, and does not make it a brand-new Recipe. When you say, “I’m using this Recipe with a tweak,” that context helps other photographers understand what they’re seeing and how you arrived there, and why they might possibly prefer that small change, too.

The second is a variant. Variants happen when the core idea remains, but the color or tonality shifts enough that it becomes its own expression. Oftentimes it’s when three or four parameters have been adjusted, or perhaps just one if that one setting has a profound effect (such as Film Simulation). Variants are wonderful because they show how flexible an idea can be, and they deserve to be named as such—connected to the original, but clearly standing on their own. A good example of this is Kodak Vericolor III 160, which is a variant of Kodak Vericolor Warm. Stating, “I started with this Recipe, but made some notable changes to get this outcome,” helps photographers understand why they might choose to use the new variation or stick with the original.

The third is inspiration. Sometimes the idea of one Recipe can spark something entirely new. The result might share a feeling or direction, but the settings themselves are fundamentally different. An example of this might be Kodak Pro 400, which was inspired in-part by Kodak Portra 400 v2; while the two Recipes have some commonality, they’re notably divergent. In that case, it’s most accurate to say that a Recipe was inspired by another rather than directly formed by it.

I’m not suggesting this as any sort of formality or rigid rule; instead, it’s simply clarity and kindness. Give credit where credit is due (however, if you don’t, nobody is policing it). When we’re open about how ideas evolved, we make it easier for others to learn and experiment. Credit isn’t about ownership, it’s about storytelling. It helps to trace how an aesthetic came to be, and it honors the shared journey that got us there. Recipes are tools meant to be used, adjusted if needed, and maybe occasionally outgrown. If they help you to make photographs that you care about, then they’re doing their job. If your version of a Recipe looks a little different than mine, that’s proof that photography is still a personal endeavor. If your photographic vision changes over time, and a favorite Recipe is no longer a desired aesthetic, or maybe Recipes in-general are no longer satisfying, that’s all normal, and a part of the photography continuum.