last year, this year

I’m trying not to compare. But, last year at this time I was on a wild mission with films and cameras and taking pictures. It’s not that I’m uninspired this year… it’s maybe that I want to avoid taking the same pictures over and over. In some cases, anyway.

Another digital sunset, anyone?

Last year I just felt more confident in my art. I knew how to use all the cameras I had and I wasn’t planning on adding any more. But then, of course, I did. And it might have shaken my confidence a bit. This is good, though. Comfort is a stifling position to be in.

I’m still trialing (is that a word?) a medium format camera and I hope its owner isn’t getting too annoyed at the time I’m taking with it. The first roll was disappointing but there are so many factors that could have contributed. Another roll didn’t advance correctly. Two did advance correctly, however, and those will be off to the lab on Monday and I will hopefully have an answer for the camera’s owner by the end of the week.

And another lesson, the pinhole camera I got midsummer. I really don’t know what I’m doing, and after these results from a first roll through it, I’m even more intimidated by it. But I need to get over that and give it another go. I learn by feeling my way through something, and I’m not going to figure this thing out unless I keep trying.

So after a bit of a hiatus, the digital camera has been in rotation a little more this summer. I’ve still got plenty of love for it.

In just over a week I’ll be in California for a short vacation, and I am nearly certain the Minolta SRT 102 is the camera I’ll take with me, because it’s my favorite and it may be the most reliable camera in my arsenal at the moment, and I’d rather shoot film thoughtfully than take a million digital images (which is what I would do, even if I decided to shoot digital thoughtfully) and tax myself with the time of going through them all.

So that’s where I am. About to go to California and see some areas I’ve never seen, forest and shore and redwoods. Testing a camera and getting over being intimidated by another camera. Waiting for some film to come back, 120 and 35 mm. I’m a bit in limbo and that’s all okay.