Toy Camera from Firenze—06/21. Raw strip scans + edited singles. Shot on Kodak Ektar 100.
Twin Lens (Yahsica Mat 124G)—light damaged b/c left in camera for 2+ years! Also shot on Kodak Ektar 100.
Look, it’s medium format film—& a quasi- Instagram rant!
I’ve always loved the process of shooting and editing photos on film. There’s more intentionality, curiosity, and mystery at every step in the process— from selecting and loading the camera with film, shooting full-manual (no instant review available, yo) through scanning and editing the negatives (I don’t process the C41!). Yeah, it’s a time consuming process, but the time demands and the anticipation that is conveniently/automatically built into the space between shooting and processing force us to slow down and think more about what we make and how we consume imagery (and our precious attention).
It has been a quick minute since I scanned and edited film. I started getting impatient scanning these negatives and individually going through each frame until I reminded myself to just lean into the fact that it was going to take time. Yeah, I guess that’s the point.
You might have noticed I deleted all of my instagram posts a few months back…again ( 🤓 ) Shooting on the phone and editing with the phone was great, but the experience of the process just started falling flat for me. I picked up a pocket-sized digital camera a few months back and started shooting raw format again—taking the photos off the card in small batches and editing individually on my computer (many of these images are posted below). I’ve found this process to be so much more pleasurable / rewarding. Seeing the photos at a larger scale just feels damn good!
While it’s a great tool for networking and sharing, Instagram is excellent at compressing everything into the same tiny box at the speed of light (which was the original purpose with the whole lomography knockoff, I suppose—remember those sweet skeuomorphic image borders???). Obvie, that’s not the case anymore—IG basically has its own financial economy now. People literally work full time jobs managing feeds. I’m not gonna sit here and crap on IG, because to be frank, even though I’m not posting I’m still looking—more than I’d like to be, in fact. I keep up with friends and things I enjoy (a-hem vintage dirtbikes, sprintcars, and Formula 1). Ironically, since I’m in Italy messenger accidentally became my primary mode of communication with several very important people in my life b/c of international phone plan issues.
The convenience of having one company own multiple platforms is a double-edged sword I’m not going to get started on here. I might attempt to tackle more on IG in another post. For now, I’m just not sure where I fit into that whole deal—maybe I’ll find it one day—or not. I’m pretty happy posting stuff on here trusting the right people will see it at the right time—Ciao.
🎞 + 📸
