A Change in Pace 

This week has been one where time has not only warped but in many ways ceased to exist. When you feel as if your life is in imminent danger there is only now. When both school and work are cancelled, there are no longer markers looming or deadlines tallying the passing days. Because of this, this week I had the time to freely explore my surroundings and engage with those around me. Instead of his usual dragging and pushing, time was merely skipping forward alongside us as a friend.

I think this must be the perfect setting to learn the basics of film photography. Typically, when I take photos digitally (either on my DSLR or my trusty iPhone) I immediately look to the display to ensure I like the photo. I often snap rapidly to guarantee a "money shot" and wait until an image I consider satisfactory appears on my screen. My focus is on the product immenently displayed. 
When shooting on film, there is no such immediacy. You won't see the photos for what could be days or weeks, or whenever you can afford to have the film developed (unless you're especially cool and develop them yourself). The taking of each photo becomes a magic in itself. You really look, see, and focus on what you're looking at. You pay a soft and whimsical sort of attention. Your usual pace slows to something less like water and more like honey. 
It's like nothing of this era, and it's something I hope to do more of very soon. 

Below is a smattering of the photos my friend and I took and some thoughts on the experience in poem form. This was my first experience ever shooting manually and though far from professional level I am very proud of how they came out. 

None of these photos have been edited. 
   

     





The wait time and anticipation inherently associated with
film photography is a beautiful and impassioned restlessness. 
Gone is instant gratification, 
traded for tender focus 
and a future more visceral viewing pleasure. 

Shooting on film is an investment with high return, 


and shooting on film sure is something like 
writing a longhand letter to Tomorrow and 
promising to kiss him then. 

9/13/17 


If you know anything about film photography a very infantile beginner might find handy, 
let your girl know in the comments. 



To clear up any confusion, "& Then I Became" will be continued in it's original post. 
This here and any future posts of this kind are merely thoughts of a different nature I wanted to share. 











Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

& Then, I Became. A Work Forever In Progress     Authored by Basya Wuensch This is an honest recounting of events. Do not mistake this to mean the following is true. I will attempt only to relate what it is I perceived at a given time. The details will become clear. Or as clear as I was capable of making all this muck. I will start at the end. It is my freshest memory. I will then fall back to somewhere in the middle and may never address the beginning. This is how I remember it. Do not let this bee-boppitting around confuse or alarm you. The order is irrelevant. The pages of this tale can be torn out and thrown in a windstorm. Whatever order you recollect them will be sufficient. This is not a story of a linear quality. This is hardly a story at all. It is a series of evolutionary flashes. A list of integral ingredients. This is how I became. 1 Somewhere in a city where no one individual can be easily picked from the crowd was a man employed to manufa...
Read more
Image
the stillness When I told people I was driving across the country with my friend (Chaya, greatest travel partner of all time. G-d bless this girl’s soul.) they asked a lot about how much driving that is, how many miles we would be moving, how many hours we would each have to drive. No one asked about the blissful moments of perfect stillness. I couldn’t have predicted the utter now-ness, the pure halt, even if they had. Yes, we did travel many miles, but we were fully experiencing where we were - and who we were in those moments. We were just somewhere in the middle of nowhere drinking it all in. We listened to SO MUCH music, played podcasts (The Hilarious World of Depression and Serial - both highly recommended), filmed the passing scenery, and talked and talked and talked. Each stop left us with something (usually an iron on patch :D, but all jokes aside I really did feel myself becoming more person with every new city, like rings were being added to my core the way they do to...
Read more
Image
this is what healing looks like. On the second floor of a big glass building is a young boy with a still bloodied scar down his chest. He is plugged into life saving machines that pull blood through a sore rib cage and stuck with needles. A small tube runs across his face administering oxygen; his hands and feet are strapped to the bed. It’s hard to believe, but this is what healing looks like. The many people that orbit the boy have had their share of clash in the past. I personally have not seen the boy’s father since the day he came to tell me that he would no longer be mine, but here we are together again in a dark room where the only light comes from the green numbers on a monitor that tell us the boy is alive. He gives me a long tight squeeze and although this is not how I imagined it, this is what healing looks like. The young boy’s even younger brother stands glued to the floor where he stands. He has never seen his brother like this. I have, this is not the first tim...
Read more