The first time I took a film photo it was not on my own camera. It was a friend’s camera that I borrowed. I brought it with me everywhere waiting for inspiration, but I never took it out of my backpack until I went home on the longest spring break in March 2020.
As I watched the film camera sit in my room, I realized that the reason I wasn’t picking it up was not due to my lack of time.
It was my own fear.
This wasn’t the first time I experienced fears in regards to art and creative pursuits, but since I was sitting in my room a lot more I was able to uncover all my excuses.
So, I picked up the camera that was loaded with film already, pulled the lever to advance it photo and…
*Click*
The shutter let the light onto the celluloid film lurking on the inside while my cat looked back at me in confusion, my photographic subject of choice.
I’ve always loved photography, but this experience of learning to shoot on film has exposed this “complex simplicity,” as I like to call it.
I try to explain it in this video:
But writing has always been my preferred way of explaining things, so I’m going to try to put it into words here.
I love how film photography has made me appreciate the beauty of waiting. I don’t have an instantaneous way of viewing the photo I just took. I have to wait and trust the process of the celluloid eventually being wound up, developed, and scanned to see that frame I was thinking about. By then, I usually forget all about it and I am pleasantly surprised with the results.
I found an appreciation for imperfections, instead of a hatred for them. Hello light leaks, I will forever embrace you because you look so pretty, even though I couldn’t have planned them in my desire for the “perfect frame.”
I found a love for the warm feelings associated with film photos. I look at a warm, grainy Kodak photo and it seems to encapsulate the colors I associate with my happy memories. Those are my favorite things to capture on film - road trips to see friends, spontaneous travels back home, or even mundane memories of my cat laying on her pillow. The colors that are captured on film say everything I feel about these things, again in a way I could not have planned.
These interwoven parts bring about such a beautiful yet simple image. The moments captured and the memories shared are not complicated, but they live on a physical film strip to be captured and frozen in time. I love that about photography, and I love the beauty that film adds to it.
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