… only done with a self-timer on my old awesome camera. This was taken in my first months in New York. I was living on the Upper West Side with my brother and his girlfriend, and going to grad school. I still felt like I was visiting. I took this in Riverside Park on a biting cold day.
The thing about not “having” the internet until you are almost 30, is your memories are different. I wonder if studies have been done about this. I don’t have 5,000 pictures of every year of my life. I always had a camera, since I was a kid, and I loved taking pictures, but you just didn’t take 5,000 pictures because you had to get them all developed. And so whatever pictures I have of whatever moment, is what I have. Memories then swirl around the picture, somehow nailed down by the one piece of “evidence” we have that the moment existed. Like: I remember this day. I had been wandering around the Upper West Side taking pictures. I went to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. I wandered through Riverside Park. I was working on a project for one of my acting classes. I had no specific GOAL with all these photographs, but I was trying to capture something … I took pictures of empty buildings, building facades, abstract shapes … it was part of what I was working on, this character I was creating. So I remember all that very well. At the end of this long day wandering around, I finally put myself in one of the pictures, lying on top of this stone railing, placing the camera at the other end. Kind of to commemorate the day: I was here, this is what I did this day, I took no pictures of humans that day – by design – I was looking for architecture, preferably run-down – but I figured one picture of a human was okay. I was here. This is what I did on that very specific day.
I recently bought an old 35mm camera at a thrift store. I’ve noticed how much more patient I am with film photography than digital. Every picture has to count when you are using film. Bad pictures actually cost money. I suck at digital photography. I’m learning, getting better, but will not be making the cover of National Geographic any time soon.
It was funny, though. The first time I went to Walmart and asked if they had 35 mm film, the associate – younger guy – looked at me like I wanted to know where the Alien Invasion Survival supplies were. He had no idea what I was talking about.
Emily – cool about the camera! I should keep my eyes peeled for such a thing – I had a good camera there for a while, and I really should get one again.
// Every picture has to count when you are using film. //
Yes! If you think it’s gonna be a good one, you really have to set it up carefully so you actually capture the moment.
// He had no idea what I was talking about. //
Ugh. I hate it when that happens! I bought a DVD player about 3 or 4 years ago because I refuse to get rid of physical media – not when streaming platforms don’t have anything even approaching the amount of old movies I own – and when I asked the kid behind the counter at Target where they were, he hesitated and then pointed me to a corner – “I think we might have some down there” … two DVDs sat in the corner. I had to wipe the dust off. lol But it works great.
You should totally mess with the DVD guy and go back to ask for a VHS player.
Did you ever see that segment on the Ellen Show where she handed a 20-something a 35mm camera and a roll of film and asked her to load it? She grabs the strip and starts pulling and pulling then tries to stuff it in the camera she could barely figure out how to open. Yeah honey, you’re going to need another roll of film…
oh no. I didn’t see that. analog is just beyond people’s concepts now.
There was a really cool article maybe 5 or 6 years ago – where the academic advisor for a college newspaper – or maybe it was the editor – who decided that for one issue that they would do it analog, the whole thing, start to finish, so the students could learn about the manual work that went into putting out a newspaper – and also try it themselves, so they could really “get” it.
This went from manual typewriters to manual layout – ad placement – the whole thing.
The students were terrified at first and then they totally got into it.
I’m happy to see that manual ‘zines are on the rise again, teenagers using glue sticks and collages to speak their minds.
I was on the yearbook staff in high school. We were a serious business. We won state competitions in both copy and photography (brag: I won best copy my senior year at yearbook camp. Yes, there is such a thing. A thing that, in that year, was held at San Diego State U at the same time as cheerleading camp. Here were these bubbly, adorable teenagers screaming perky cheers while we were in the dorms, tortured writers and photographers, thinking Holden Caulfield had nothing on angst. Our phasers were set to “STFU”). Anyway, we had our own developing lab on campus. I didn’t take my film to a store to be devloped. I took it to school. I learned SO MUCH about the art of photography at the time. Developing is as much of an art as picture-taking itself. I’m glad there is a good effort to make this not a dying art.
And speaking of dead arts, my 35mm has Kodachrome settings. They make me so sad. Finding the film is no problem. Finding one human on Earth who can develop it is harder than talking to Ishi.
This yearbook stuff is amazing – I had no idea there were awards in yearbooks! Best copy! well, I’m not surprised .
wow – so did you develop the photos manually, like in the baths of acid (? that doesn’t sound right) and all that? I would love to try that!
Oh, and I know. Kodachrome. :( I hate it when things go away forever.
I MISS 35MM FILM!
among other things……