analogue stories . January on film

I love a project and a challenge. Every year I’ve got something else and 2019 is going to be film. By film I don’t mean moving images – although that’s another thing I need to do – but analogue photography. As mentioned in an earlier post, I bought a point and shoot camera not too long ago and I really enjoy shooting with it. So this year, I’m going to shoot one roll of film (or more) every month and this is what my January looked like:

At the beginning of the month, I went to London to visit my friend Heidi. We spent a couple hours at the Tate and she showed me around the Crystal Palace area – very nice actually. Lots of cute stores, good coffee places and antique shops.
What I like about this camera is that I barely have any control over how the images come out. If there is not enough light available, moving objects like people will blur. It creates a dynamic and sort of moody atmosphere.

Back home, I took the mju-ii on a walk around Brighton and Hove to collect some snapshots of my local neighbourhood. Hove is so pretty!

A walk in the downs with my friends and Buster proved again how forgiving film can be when it’s very bright. I was worried my Portra 400 would not be able to take a well exposed shot in the midday sun… I worried for no reason.

Towards the end of the month I used my lunch break to fill my film. Using the time before/after work or during breaks is something I hear a lot of people do – I’m usually too lazy but it turns out to be so easy. On the way to Tesco, the local deli or during an afternoon coffee run – it only takes a few seconds to take a shot of that scene that looks like it could be a nice photographic moment. I’m planning to do more of that now, the camera is in my bag most of the time anyway.

One of the things I like most about film photography is that by the end of the roll, I’ve already forgotten what I started with. That makes the moment I receive my scans quite exciting. It’s not just the anticipation to find out whether the photos turned out alright but to remember what had happened only a few days or weeks before.