Spring Creek Canyon Trail
September 2020
I've started shooting film again, using a Canon AE-1 Program that my sister and brother-in-law gifted to me eight years ago (thanks again!). I think film photography has become my COVID hobby, but one that I hope will stick with me after the pandemic has dissipated.
Way Fruit Farm
September 19, 2020
I appreciate film photography's slower and more deliberate pace. This is a cliché to say, but it's quite true. And the constraint of a limited number of exposures motivates me to be more selective with what I choose to shoot.
Sure, I could self-impose that constraint on my digital photography, but as someone who's made (and blown) self-imposed deadlines for many writing projects, I'm betting that that would work out quite differently.
It's also just a neat change of pace to take an image in a way that is not digitally mediated. It ultimately is, of course—the film is scanned at the lab I use for processing. But at the point of capture, it is light interacting with film, the same film that I receive back a few weeks later in the mail. And if my hard drive were to fail, and my cloud backups and the rest of the internet were to disappear tomorrow (note, I do not want either of these things to happen), those negatives will still exist, in their plastic sleeve and paper envelope, and I kind of like the thought of that.
Sunset in the Woods
State College, PA
September 2020