Learning to Slow Down

In the age of same day deliveries it’s hard to wait for things to come. I’m talking about things that have to be shipped as well as experiences.

I got my first digital camera back in 2007-8-ish and I never looked back. I’d end up take breaks from photography over the years but always pick it back up and shoot a tremendous amount of shots, in the thousands sometimes! In the last year I’ve really decided that photography is something I want to pursue more often and get better at. I’ve been using my iPhone almost daily to take pictures of interesting people/places/things. As well as taking my “good” camera out for some wildlife/nature/landscape shots.

I never really got into film photography due to the cost per shot, fear of messing up limited exposures, the overall hassle of finding/learning about film and then getting it developed. In the last several years film photography has gone through somewhat of a renaissance. Call it “hipster” or “bandwagon-y” but I’m jumping into it! I have picked up a couple of film cameras via eBay(for those interested I have a Rolleiflex medium format and Rollei 35mm on the way! More on these once I have a few rolls through them!) and I have ordered some rolls of both b&w and color film to try. I’m excited to try it out but the wait has been almost unbearable! From slow eBay shipping to researching to find a suitable film for my cameras the wait has grown to over 3 weeks now. My excitement hasn’t waned one bit but my anxiety of wasting film, time, energy etc has grown exponentially every day!

From a recent post about sucking I know that my first few rolls of film are likely going to be trash and could be until I wrap my head fully around the exposure triangle as it relates to film photography. Film is much less forgiving than digital from everything I’ve been reading and watching on youtube.

This is a good thing and something I want to focus on. Being more deliberate and methodical about pictures I want to take. With digital I shoot RAW and typically get multiple shots of each scene I take and I’m pretty loose with exposure and the refrain “I can fix/save that in post” echos through my head constantly. I can’t do that with film. I do realize that I’m putting an unrealistic amount of pressure on myself but through therapy I’m getting pretty good and catching myself and just letting those thoughts float by.

Of course my first few rolls, or even the first dozen rolls are going to suck. That’s ok. These days I’m more looking for progress, not perfection!