I had been interested in film photography for a few years before I picked up an older camera to try my hand at it.
As an archivist by trade, and someone who was (shock) alive in the 1990’s, I’m no stranger to analog prints, negatives, slides, daguerreotypes, you name it. But I wasn’t taking any photos myself. As a child, it was always my father who picked up our bulky old film camera to take family photos of my siblings and I while we stood on our front porch or posed at a Mount Saint Helen’s lookout point. If my father wasn’t taking film photos, he was hauling around a monstrous VHS video camera on his shoulder. As an archivist, I’m often handling film photographs that were taken by professional photographers, sometimes long dead, named or unnamed in the historical record. What I love about handling film photographs are the striking colors, the satisfaction of holding physical objects, and the variety in physical mediums (my favorite is slide film right out of the carousel).
So I decided I needed to get my hands on a camera and a roll of film to create something on my own. Why not? Film photography has seen a sharp rise in popularity in the past 10 years. It’s not a cheap hobby, but it’s not obsolete! Instead of rushing into a purchase, I was lucky enough to be gifted a Japanese 1991 Ricoh RZ-800 by my in-laws for Christmas 2021, and was able to take some photos of a rare occurrence: snow in Vancouver, BC.
[Taken January 2022]
