Behind the camera
Alt title: pics or it didn't happen
Listen I’m no Lindbergh but here are film pictures I love and some words behind them. Every memoir has a break for images!!!
I’ve been taking film pictures for 6 years, or maybe let’s say 4.5 years, depending on your definition of “taking film pictures”. On average, I use up a roll of 36 images every 1-2 months, which amounts to around 1,500 in total as of writing this for all you math nerdz reading. When I first decided on starting a newsletter around this time last year (lol) I knew I wanted to incorporate film somehow. We come to this place for magic writing but you wouldn’t mind if I sprinkled in a little image every now and then would you??? Don’t Copy Me respects visual learners.
I’m orange because this was my first and last ever spray tan. No regrets but not my thing. The time had come to see Harry Styles at Madison Square Garden, and we were freaking. This was the Before Times, when getting concert tickets was not like going to W*R. Somehow we got pit tickets and I don’t even remember being annoying about it? I made eye contact with Harry Styles and not in a delusional way! Anyway this is me pre-concert; the sun is shining, the NYU kids at the bar below are celebrating something, and I have no worries at all, darling.
Picture this: you’re on the famous steps in Florence for the first time since you studied abroad in 2015 (I didn’t study abroad in Florence, for context) and the view has stayed the same but everything has changed, etc. It’s not as simple as saying I’m “haunted by” the passage of “time”, but something like that.
I take a lot of pictures of food. I live by one mantra and one mantra only: PHONE EATS FIRST. This (sometimes) extends to my film camera. Another fun one for the number geekz: broken down, it costs about 55 cents an image per roll where I go for film development. Sometimes when I take pictures of food I wonder about the developer in the dark room sighing as they see yet another slightly blurry image of PIZZA, but 1. I know they don’t actually look at your film rolls…. (?) and 2. food pictures aren’t about the food, not really. I see this and I remember who I was with (icons), I remember the lively conversation about fashion choices over a Coppola red blend, and yes, I remember the taste of that perfect SAUCE! Go to Square Pie.
This roll marked the beginning of a new camera, which my aunt had graciously found and given to me at the perfect time. My previous one, also a hand-me-down, had just taken its last breath and I was going to the South of FRANCE, for crying out loud!!! Timing is everything, and so a new film camera was bestowed upon me faster than you can say global entry. I had no idea how these images would turn out but I merrily snap snap snapped my way through the French Riviera regardless, and well would you look at THAT^. Every picture taken since has this level of clarity, with little to no effort on my end. A dream for a film lover with no formal knowledge (me).
My first thought when I saw this was “dementors”. If you weren’t a Harry Potter kid, it’s the freaky cloaked soul sucking creatures who first appear in the third book. Besides the mild physical resemblance pictured, I’m happy to report my friends in this photo couldn’t be further from THAT. I love this image because simply put, I love taking pictures of my friends and having a visual archive of pure moments like this one. A weekend down the shore is always worth capturing, but a winter weekend down the shore holds more specifically fond beach memories for me. I think of watching New Year’s Eve fireworks in my pajamas at the beach entrance, freezing and tired and happy. I think of a jewelry store on the boardwalk that I hope is still there. I think of the hardest I’ve ever laughed. I think about playing Rummy wayyy past my bedtime.
Because my birthday falls in late December, a year also represents an age. 2022 / 27 was a great year. I kicked it off with a disco cowboy party (I know I know) and the rest of the year flashes through my mind now in a blurry, glittery montage. I often fall into the trap of looking at moments in time through rose-colored glasses but I know it really was that perfect. And to think it started off wearing that hat…
I will do more of these if you let me <3
XX,
Rebecca
You were, in fact, annoying about it
Would have loved to have been part of that conversation about fashion choices over a Coppola red blend.