Seen, shot, processed, uploaded. All within the hour. As seen in Orange Alley today, in the Mission. The end of the bougainvillea.
I was out shooting with Armand Emamdjomeh on this fine, warm winter’s day in his ‘hood. He has the coolest old-school Hasselblad 500 C/M and I enjoyed it vicariously, watching him look through the viewfinder, advancing the film with the little winding crank. He talked about the Zen-like feeling of loading the film, the meditativeness of using this kind of camera. We talked about waiting, taking time, not being able to make mistakes… I wanted to be Zen, too.
But then it was great to just come home, download the pics I took and start seeing what I had.
I never had a film camera. I think I’m probably too impatient for one now.
***
Armand recently participated in a very interesting project through the UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, where he is a student. The project is called American Identity, and he used the above-mentioned Hasselblad for his portraits. You can see a preview of the project here.
This is really beautiful. The leaves against the rocks are just perfect!
I’m with him on the whole Zen-like quality of shooting with film. There’s a kind of surrender that happens… a kind of inner quiet and a letting go … that I don’t get from digital. I can’t recommend the experience enough, actually. Not that there’s anything wrong with the immediacy of digital. Instant gratification rules too.
Oh, also? This is fantastic.
I love the photo, Julie… It’s wonderful and you got your highs and lows perfectly to my liking, plus you captured a transmitted color of light through the petals — it really is an illuminated shot…
And I know I’d never be able to go back to film… The darkroom was less zen and more of a dishwashing job for me… Everything took so long and cost so much… And dust would get on your negatives and drive you over the edge… Always having to stop at the camera store to buy film or drop off color film for processing… Always wanting a Hasselblad, and drooling every time you saw one…
Asking a young lady into your darkroom to see what develops???
But I digress…
I love the color of your photo…
Hasta la Vista…
Adore this photo. The color is amazing, and it has a lovely, haunting quality to it.
[...] told you that to tell you this: I read Julie’s post from the other day and started to feel poorly about how far I am behind on processing and posting [...]
[...] on Friday I took a walk with Julie Michelle of Caliber, where she stopped to take some pictures of some bougainvillea growing in the alley behind my place. She’s a speedy shooter, shooting and processing it all in an hour. Troy and I should take [...]
This is an amazing shot…it’s beautiful!