Yes, I’ve gone on and on and on about my love of film. I’ve also gone on and on and on about my love of plastic cameras, and pinhole photography, and on and on and on. Cue the anticipation music, please. Or maybe Tom Petty is more appropriate? I shot a ridiculous amount of film on my trip to Arizona, but then, of course, all that film needed to be developed. And scanned. So the whole process takes time. A lot of time. And that’s a good thing.
The time between shooting and then seeing the results is when the magic happens. You have no idea what you captured. or if you captured anything. Or if you advanced your film correctly, or if overlapping images is what you were hoping for. Or if your guessing of extremely long exposure times were accurate. Or if the shadow of your tripod sits squarely inside the frame. Or if your film is fogged. Or unevenly developed. Or scratched. Water spots, dust, those little half moons from a botched loading on the reel. Such a minefield. Such is the life of a film photographer. Masochism? Probably. And yet.
And yet, that moment when all the film is developed and scanned. You revisit the journey to make those pictures all over again. You celebrate the triumphs, you lament the “almosts” or “duds.” You see things you didn’t see before. You embrace serendipity. You learn form the experience. You keep going. You keep shooting. Masochism? Probably..
