the coldwater files

  i've been into film photography since before there was an option to be into anything film photography - ie when i was 14 in the year 2000. digital wasn't an option, at least not at a price point i could afford, and mobile phones in general were the playthings of businesspeople and the super rich. i had made friends for the first time, and i wanted to document everything. take pictures of my friends, take pictures of my school, then my college, then the world around me. so i found a cheap point and shoot in the pages of the argos catalogue and back then, film was plentiful and cheap(ish).  then, in 2003, there was an exhibition at the urbis gallery in manchester on this thing called lomography. i'd never heard of it before. here was a photographic movement built not on technical perfection but on sheer vibes alone. the movement has 10 golden rules , with the final one being "don't worry about any rules." seeing all the lomographs in the gallery was truly insp...