About a year ago, I remember standing in my backyard with my kids trying SO hard to capture this "perfect" moment I had envisioned in my head. I was frustrated, disappointed and discouraged in so many ways. My kids were absolutely NO help what-so-ever and as hard as I tried, and no matter how many pictures I kept snapping, the image I had created in my head just wouldn't come. It was a click-click-click-check viewfinder-click-click-click-click-check viewfinder process and it was at that moment that I realized I was no longer trying to capture a special moment...I was trying to orchestrate a moment that didn't even exist. I put my camera down and walked away.....wondering if I would ever even want to pick it back up again.
The inability to "create" was just as bad as not "creating" the image I had envisioned. I am a creative person by nature and I always need to be doing something with this creative energy. Over the years I've dabbled in just about every creative outlet - painting, writing, knitting, cross-stitching, scrapbooking, book making, jewelry making, and of course, photography. Photography has always been THE outlet. When I did dabble in any other areas, my favorite part was always taking the pictures of the process or finished project. So when I found myself at a cross roads of disappointment with photography, I knew I needed to switch gears. Enter film.
Film is purely magical to me. I loaded a roll of film into a camera for the first time less than a year ago. Since that moment, I have shot way too many rolls to even count, and have transitioned all of my client work to film. Film brings back the joy of photography to me. It lets my inner "weirdo" seep out. It reminds me that it's ok to be different. And it allows me celebrate who I am. The absolute best part is that my attention is now focused back on the process of creating....not the finished product. You don't have the luxury (or curse...) of a digital display with a film camera. You can compose in camera, you can change your angle and set up the shot through your viewfinder however you want, but the finished product isn't an immediate result. You have to wait for that image to appear in your inbox from your lab. And when it does it's magical. I no longer pick apart my images or get disappointed with my results. The anticipation is crazy and the feeling of getting scans in your inbox is like Christmas morning EVERY.SINGLE.TIME. Sure...I get plenty of images that COULD HAVE BEEN AMAZING but weren't, but that's just par for the course. That's part of the process. These "mistakes" help me learn.....they encourage me to try again...or change something and try something different. Film gets you back to the PROCESS of photography. So if you've ever found yourself in your backyard feeling discouraged by what you are seeing on your digital display, picking up a film camera is what you need to do.
