Earlier this week I was showing a friend of mine some of the photographs I recently took, and they were very complimentary. They also encouraged me to share my photos with the world. Many of my photographs are of people that I love and care about, and I don’t know if I am ready to put them on display for the everyone to peruse on the internet forever. So I think I’ll try to find some photos that omit any sensitive details and share those with you. Because that friend is right, I do love taking photos and I love many of the photographs I’ve taken, so let’s look at some.
First, though, before you look at anything (sorry for the delay) I want to talk briefly about what kind of photographs I take. I take photos on my phone, just like everyone else, but all of these have been taken on 35mm film cameras. Side note: if you are wondering what the 35mm means, it’s the measurement of the width of the film that the camera uses. I’ve used a handful of cameras and a few different film stocks, expired and new. I am beginning to fall more and more in love with black and white film (particularly HP5 for the nerds in the audience). So these are all film photos, taken on various cameras with various film.
This is the V&A waterfront in Cape Town, South Africa. There’s this permanent Ferris wheel, sort of in the middle of the waterfront, in amongst the shops and restaurants and people. This photo was taken on an overcast day, you would ordinarily be able to see Table Mountain in the background but it’s obscured by clouds and mist. My mom and I had just come from the British embassy, applying for her visitor’s visa. We were close to the waterfront, so we decided to get lunch and while trying to find a restaurant to go to, the plastic awning, wet from the rain, caught my eye. I don’t really know why I took this photo, other than the idea just came to me. I have no special connection to that Ferris wheel or thoughtful, creative reason for using the reflection. But I remember that lunch with my mom - we had burgers, I had a veggie one and my mom teased me for it. It was a great day. I took more photos, but this one stuck with me for some reason.
I sort of love this photo. Before you call me deluded, don’t worry, I haven’t lost my marbles; I know it’s a bad photo. I know you can hardly make anything out. If you squint and use some imagination you might be able to see me standing in the middle of the frame, a big grin plastered on my face. This is another wonderful overcast shot, this time in Scotland. I was visiting a dear friend of mine in Glasgow for about a week. The weather was shocking - I’ve been to Scotland before, but that week in Glasgow was, perhaps, the wettest and greyest of my life. Lucky for me, the yellow rain jacket I’m donning in the photograph arrived in Glasgow just before I did, so I was afforded a little protection from the oh-so-Scottish weather. On the day pictured in the photo, my friend took me to the small Scotch island her aunt lives on, Great Cumbrae Island, in an attempt to escape the overcast city. The island was equally clouded, I’m afraid to report. She, my Glaswegian friend, is a professional videographer and I am a semi-delusional, semi-professional photographer, and somehow, between the two of us, we managed to take a thoroughly shit photograph. How perfectly wonderful.
This is Sacré-Coeur, an old church on a hill in Paris. I am sure that that description is a gross oversight. When googling the spelling of the old church (I tried Sac Re Cur, clearly my French classes in Grade 5 didn’t take as well as my teacher intended), it is described as, “one of the most iconic monuments in Paris.” I’m sure that’s true, but as the uncultured heathen that I am, I hadn’t heard of the place before I was standing right beside it. My wonderful girlfriend took me to Paris for one night for my birthday (I know, spoilt rotten, I think you should hate me too), and this was the first place we went after we checked into our hotel and dropped off our bags. I also can’t quite tell why I like this photo, but I do. I remember waiting for that tiny plane to fly between the towers of the church, and I felt very proud to have captured a modern machine in the same frame as an ancient, apparently iconic church. The sky was clear and blue that day, but thanks to my love of black and white film, we can all pretend that this photo fits in with the rest of the overcast ones in this article.
Before I show you the last photo in today’s journal, I want to talk a little bit more about why I choose to use film. It’s laborious when compared to digital photography or using your phone, but it is wonderfully tangible. There’s a little bit of magic in film, I think. It is definitely harder - I have a stupid app on my phone that I need to use to help me set the right settings on my grandpa’s old camera, and every single photo needs different settings. But I like that it takes more from me. I need to focus, to really watch the world, to make sure I catch that moment of laughter or flapping wings or reflection in a window. It reminds me to step away from the digital world and focus on the world I can touch with my hands. And I don’t think I get enough of that - the real world. Did you know that with film, the light makes a permanent chemical change when it touches the plastic film? I know it sounds nuts, but I really feel that light when I look at my pictures. There’s just something different about it. It’s like a little part of me, of the world, on that day, is stuck in the picture. Anyway. Clearly I could go on forever. I will spare you though, that won’t be in this article.
This is the photograph I’ll leave you with. It is of my wonderful girlfriend. She and I visited a lake called Wannsee, just outside Berlin. We intended to watch the sunset, but the cloud cover made us doubtful whether or not we’d catch it. I think we were fortunate enough to catch a mostly pink sky. I also took a photo featuring her gorgeous smile, but that, I’m afraid, isn’t going on the internet today. I can’t tell you what she was pointing at, I was far too enamoured with her in the moment to notice. There is a lake behind her, not pictured. Let’s say it’s a boat or a lovely home on the opposite shore that drew her attention. I assure you, no house or boat could ever draw my attention away from her. In fact, it was quite challenging to find photographs to share with you, as she is the subject of most of them. What a wonderful privilege it is to capture just a fraction of her beauty in each photograph. And how lucky I am that when I put the camera down, she is standing right in front of me, likely asking if I saw what she was pointing at. “No, my darling, could you show me again?”