Thursday, August 18, 2016

Summer on Film #2


I love the unpredictability of film so much, the fact that a strange color cast can appear on one photo and not the next, even though they were taken with the same camera settings and in the same location. It might have something to do with the fact that all my manual cameras are old and were bought secondhand. Or perhaps someone who's more knowledgeable about the inner workings of film cameras and the developing process could explain it away with technical jargon. But I prefer to think it's all alchemy and light and maybe a little pixie dust sprinkled in the mix too.

I can remember being a small child, completely amazed and not really being able to wrap my brain around the idea that cameras could capture a moment in time and hold it forever. It was pure magic to me then, and it still is. Don't get me wrong, I love digital photography too, mostly for the immediacy and convenience of it. And on a related note, the internet wouldn't really exist as we know it without digital photography, and I'm definitely team internet, so there's that. But I never really stopped thinking of film cameras with the same wonder and excitement I had as a child, so they just feel more special to me.

I guess I'm just feeling a little sentimental about it lately because I keep seeing blurbs about this film or that film being discontinued, and I know at some point, they will probably stop producing film altogether. But I hope it's not for a long, long time.

1 comment:

  1. I absolutely LOVE that blue car, what a stunner! And I hear what you say about film. I haven't taken photos other than digital in years. But I loved the idea of carefully chosing a subject to photograph, and the excitement to get the film developed and the photos printed.

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