how to make the moment last
how to make the moment last
amateur analog photography & memory-making
So many thick sheets of rain had rolled against the tent overnight that when we woke up, five of the six of us were convinced some kind of animal had also been pushing itself against the tent’s walls. We didn’t have time to debate it. I quickly crushed my t-shirts into my backpack and spat out my toothpaste and joined the team at the foot of the campsite to make our journey back to our cars.
Right about then I cursed myself. Everything was soaked – socks, underwear, even cell phones – but I was confident those at least could survive the trek to the car and eventually to my warm apartment. What I was less confident about were the rolls of 35mm film I’d been shooting all weekend, which I’d forgotten proper cases for, and had been shuffling around sort of awkwardly in the top pocket of my backpack (then wet and only getting wetter). It was not my first time at Point Reyes National Seashore, but this time the Bay Area’s soft autumn, rolling fog, occasional bits of sun and warmth, hilarious friends, and two bottles of whiskey had coalesced into a trip I never wanted to forget.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m no film photography expert. My best camera, a Canon EOS Elan, was my mom’s in the 90s. I have two other cameras, but none purchased for more than $25. I’m not great with a light meter and tend to prefer the simplicity of a point-and-shoot. I’m not good at staging anything and often get blurry, goofy shots of friends I’m not really sure what to do with. But there’s something about film photography that I treasure more than any other hobby. For the last seven years, I’ve spent hundreds (potentially over a thousand?) of dollars towards film and its development. Never regretted a penny.
So I took the rolls and shoved them up into my sleeve up towards my elbow where, for whatever reason, I was convinced they’d be the most sheltered from the rain. (My camera was in my backpack, wrapped in someone’s sweater.) My method was not very comfortable, but it worked. The six of us made the foggy, peaty trek to the cars and wasted no time rushing to a diner just outside the park, where we would warm ourselves one-by-one with the hair dryer in the bathrooms.
About a month later, I brought the film to a photo shop in the Castro, where I cautiously explained to the cashier that the film might be “rain-ruined.” He took a look, held both rolls up the fluorescents, and assured me that “I think we can make these work.” After enduring a painful wait of three days, I woke up one morning to a Dropbox link. About 60 photos, prettier than anything I’d shot in a long time. I basked in the glory of accomplishment, unsure of if it was the photographic skill or the lumps in my elbow.
I sent the Dropbox link to friends. I picked some photos to print and hang in my bedroom. I posted some on Instagram. I opened them on my work laptop to inspect the finer grains. Sometimes I’m just waiting in line somewhere and I open them up for the dopamine rush. The dozen or so photos I took on my iPhone? Aside from the day I got home, I haven’t looked at them once.
Film photography rocks, but it goes without saying how expensive, time-consuming, and knowledge-intensive it can be. It’s not a privilege everyone can easily enjoy, so I want to pull away a bit of the hipster curtain here and at least provide some of that knowledge. There are dozens of technical guides online (like this one) which will walk you through the steps of gauging a light meter or selecting the right type of film for your desired outcome. Instead I hope to provide an instructional guide towards getting the basics set up and then thinking about your focus, which I would argue matters more in the beginning than perfect technical execution. (Who has time for that, anyways?)
Here’s what to do:
Source a point-and-shoot camera from eBay.
If you know how a camera works, or are interested in learning the meaning “F stop” and “exposure time,” you could certainly try a manual (or automatic SLR) version – but I recommend not diving in immediately if you’re unfamiliar. There’s a beauty to the point-and-shoot in that it reduces the burden of expertise so you just have to worry about what’s making it into the shot.
I’ve owned both a Canon SureShot and a Minolta Freedom, which are both fine. Lomography will even show you examples of film shot by each camera. Personally, I would just find an eBay listing that looks reasonable – let price be the decision-maker for you. You want to be sure the listing contains the words “working” or “tested.”
It might just be nostalgia, but I have a huge preference for real old-school cameras in lieu of the suite of contemporary film cameras built to look old and function as new. In fact I recently caught an ad that suggests this “paper camera,” a digital camera which mirrors the retro, lower-quality feel of a disposable camera, will be the “hottest” gift this holiday season. It’s cute but I find it a little corny. The kind of thing a rich guy buys to show he has real hobbies besides making money. Plus I think you need to work a bit to see your photos. Something something, beauty born of struggle.
Source some film from your local photo shop.
My usuals are Kodak Ektar (or the cheaper Colorplus). (You can try Amazon if you want, but frankly it’s selection is subpar and in most cases actually more expensive than local shops.) Allow yourself to splurge every once in a while for a special roll with Cinestill – you could capture your friends getting drunk on real movie film!
Take aim at your favorite things.
If you’re like me, you struggle to meaningfully look inward and interrogate your authentic preferences (not what Your Dad Wants For You, or What The People on EJMR Want For You, or so on). I ask that you pause for a second and think, as silly as it is, What’s the place you like the most? Is there a coffee shop you love more than anything? Do you love the exterior of your grandmother’s house? Are you, like me, completely in awe of the brilliance of your friends? If the answer to any of these things is yes, you know where to start shooting.
Much like how writing is good when it’s your voice, photography is good (at least to me) when it’s clear that you took the image. There’s a lot of considerations that might go into this. With film, I’ve found the following are some of the most crucial concerns:
Time of day: What time of day is the shot taken? Is it morning, bright and white? Is it a golden hour streetscape? Is it a late-night flash photo calling back to the club photos of the 90s and 00s?
Light: What is in the shadow? What does the light illuminate?
Content: What is centered? What is out of frame? What matters enough to be in it? Is it zoomed in and or is it an atmospheric landscape?
Style: Is it an action shot? Is it candid? Is it formally-staged enough to look like an engagement shoot or is it something you caught your friend doing on top of a pool table in a dive bar?
Develop your film in a somewhat timely fashion.
The hardest part! When you finish shooting your roll (or rolls) of film, I recommend going to a local developer (for me, Photoworks) or The Darkroom, which you mail your film into and they develop quickly and for a reasonable price.
You can totally DIY if you want, too. I once developed black-and-white film back in my Chicago apartment during a particularly brutal winter storm, so the effort it took didn’t matter. The method I used is real surgery: you practice unscrewing bottles and dipping material into other bottles in the light and then you have to do the same thing totally blind with your hands inside of a bag you cannot see into. It feels a bit like the board game Operation. And then you get to hang the strips with your friends’ faces on them in your bathtub and hope that your roommate doesn’t need to take a shower.
Whatever method you employ, you will wait. It’s the most agonizing few hours/days of your life. Your world is in other hands! And you’re a Zillennial baby who needs photos now! But unfortunately, that’s what makes it so much sweeter when you do get them in your email inbox.
Make it last!
Send the pics to your friends, follow through and print them. Post them. Think about them, note what you might improve upon in the future. Even bad ones are pretty interesting (Recently I actually made an Instagram with some friends to showcase fucked up/mistake shots—feel free to contribute pics via DM). Above all else, remember to save the negatives and digital files somewhere safe. After all, their physical quality is what makes them so special in a digital world.
iPhone camera pics live and die a quick life, but film photos cost so much time and money that you will fight to keep them around. (I once tried to calculate the cost per image and immediately back-tracked when I realized it was more than a dollar.) In an age where everything feels artificial and infinite, these are refreshingly tangible and finite. They are not going to change no matter how much or little you remember them (unless you edit them, which I seldom do, or misplace the negatives, which I sometimes do). It’s a moment stamped in time, completely yours to own. Plus, you can show the memory to someone else, present a 5x7” in their hands, and at a house party a few weeks later, you can quietly notice it on their fridge.