I DIDN’T STOP CREATING, I STOPPED FEELING.
I’m a 90’s kid, which means my childhood was documented on film and not by us, but by a camera man. That’s what we called them back then. Not a photographer but a camera man. He’d appear at birthdays, school events, family gatherings, carrying a camera that felt almost ceremonial, randomly like those ice cream trucks and we didn’t question it. We just stood there, smiled when told, and trusted that the moment was being kept somewhere beyond us. There was no checking the image, no instant proof but Just the sound of the shutter and the quiet, understanding that we’d see it later and days or weeks would pass before those photos came back either slightly faded, sometimes off-center, often imperfect but when they did, they felt gentle. Like memory made physical and looking at them now, I realize I learned the feeling of film long before I ever held a camera myself.
Two weeks ago, I picked up two film cameras at a flea market I stumbled into while out on a photo walk. It wasn’t planned and I wasn’t searching for anything specific. I just ended up there, and they ended up with me. Within the first few hours, I was reminded what film photography actually asks of you and the first lesson came quickly, I couldn’t even turn the camera on, an Olympus mju II zoom 115 and unlike anything digital, it doesn’t wake up with a button. You have to slide the front cover open and when I finally figured it out, and took a few shots, the camera started making this constant whirring sound and refused to function, I panicked and assumed the batteries were dead. I went from supermarket to supermarket until I finally found out that these cameras use something called a CR123 battery which I’d never heard of before. I replaced them, hopeful and nothing. I tried everything. I even asked ChatGPT but all was in vain and It wasn’t until I changed the film, that the camera suddenly came back to life, Just like that, the relief was physical and in that moment, I felt the sharp contrast between modern cameras and old film ones, the difference between convenience and having to figure things out. Between being helped instantly, and being forced to slow down, troubleshoot, and listen.
I own two digital cameras right now and I’ve owned a few more over the last couple of years and they’re good, really good. Perfect, even I think, which has made me realize that I didn’t pick up this film camera because I was curious or because it looked good sitting on a shelf but because I had gone numb and somewhere along the way, the instinct to photograph, the wanting to document and excitement had disappeared. I’d lift my digital cameras and feel nothing. No pull or urgency but Just the quiet pressure to get it right and they worked flawlessly, every time, and somehow that perfection made my emptiness even louder, which mirrored something in me that as a man, person, I was unfinished, inconsistent and prone to doubt, that I miss things, fail and hesitate most of the time and yet the tools I was using demanded precision, speed and certainty but film doesn’t. Film has asked me to accept my imperfections instead of hiding them and has allowed room for error and uncertainty and not knowing. In this space, something in me has finally been stirred again.
Shooting on film felt like a form of surrender because I gave up control in small and deliberate ways. Not getting to preview what I had just made or undo it or even have infinite chances, all this asked for my intention to slow down and to look longer, to decide if a moment was worth the cost of a frame. Each roll gave me a finite number of shots and somehow that limitation sharpened my attention. You kinda begin to notice the smaller things, light on a wall, a pause in someone’s movement or even the prediction of something before it happens and in tending to those small things, something larger starts to stir in me. It felt less like collecting images and more like making something that required faith, patience and the acceptance that not everything needs to be seen immediately to be real. Working with film has made me more aware of the process unfolding in me as well, doing the work quietly without needing to see results immediately, of trusting that something is forming, even when it isn’t visible yet. I’m learning to sit with that and to keep going without proof and let time do it’s part.
I think about the light leaks and how something unintended finds its way in, altering the image without destroying it. I also think about the missed focus and how not everything can be sharp at once, how some things ask to remain soft and how the grain and texture that only appears when you stop chasing perfection don’t ruin the photograph but give it character and truth. Maybe life works the same way, I don’t know, I'm yet to figure that out, that maybe the imperfections aren’t interruptions, but evidence that something real is happening.
For now, that’s enough. I’m not trying to fix the feeling. I’m learning to stay with it. To keep showing up. To keep making, even in the quiet. Especially there.
