hello again! to read the first part of this 2025 retrospective, go here!
Part Three: The Beginning (for real this time)
prior to the beginning of the year, i discovered a few things. one: a desire to get back into film photography. armed with my Lomo'Instant, i wanted a proper 35mm camera. instant stuff was fine, but the camera's massive, and not really pocketable. i found a cheap point and shoot on depop which came with a link to analogue wonderland. much like this link right here, that one came with a free roll of kentmere pan 400. the camera itself was shit, and i ended up sending it back (autofocus didn't work, so all of my shots were blurry), but now i knew a place that could sell me great value film in every possible configuration.
i visited my sister who'd found some old cameras in her boyfriend's parents' attic, and one was a bright red 35mm point and shoot. i popped my newly acquired roll of kentmere 400 in there and took it on a test run.
of the 24 exposures, those four above were the only salvageable ones. another old 35mm point and shoot had failed me!
after finding my way back to lomography with my new (second hand) instant camera, i remembered my old Colorsplash camera. i wanted that again, as my first proper film camera. at college and university i'd taken that camera with me everywhere, taking shots of my friends on nights out, using the colourful flash gels to paint my friends in brightly coloured light. those photos, between 2004 and 2006, are sadly lost to time, but that creative drive, to take photos outwith the usual norm, that remained. i found a colorsplash on ebay, untested, which had been sat in a garage or something for god knows how long, until i bought it, threw a new battery and roll of kodak gold in, and got shooting again.
take away the bells and whistles of this camera and at its heart it's a very simple plastic-lensed point and shoot; pop a battery in to power the flash, add a roll of film, close the back, point, and shoot. what makes this camera weird is not just how it looks (you can see the photo in the previous post here), but that it has a bulb mode - instead of pressing the shutter and taking the shot, you can hold down the shutter for as long as you like. the camera will continue taking the picture for as long as you're holding down that shutter button. it means you can do some cool stuff with light as you've seen above. also, rotate the flash and you can colour your flashes with blue, red, green, anything you like. it's very silly, but it's also very creative. i've had so much fun taking pictures with this camera this year.
after laura, my sister, died, the stress and grief come in powerful waves. there's admin work to do when a family member dies and you're the executor. we were dealing with my mother's estate when laura passed, and she was the executor. once she died, that passed to me, and the whole process had to be started again. a brief aside - i'm unable to work due to my health conditions, which this whole thing was massively exacerbating, and so to add executor stress on top of that, well. two things got me through this year. one was dylan, my beloved partner. the other was throwing myself headlong into film photography.
the colorsplash was great, but i wanted to try something new. something that would test me a little bit. point and shoots are fine, don't get me wrong, but one of the things i inherited from my stepdad was a canon eos dslr. i had no idea at all how to use the damn thing. it's got full manual control - i get to decide the aperture, and the shutter speed, and the ISO. the main problem here is that i had no idea what any of that meant.
so i did what i usually do when faced with a thing i want to learn about: i learned about it. i consumed article after youtube video after reddit post about it. the exposure triangle, how to expose a shot correctly, how to use lighting. i spent all my evenings once dylan had retired to bed reading every free resource i could find.
finally, i felt like i had a handle on things. you know what that means: time to buy a new camera.
armed with a couple of point and shoots at this point - the colorsplash and a very cute fully electronic automatic lad by the name of praktica cm1000 i picked up at the end of january - it was time to try something a little more fancy. after talking to a new pal on bluesky i went with the nikon em, very much a beginners' slr from the 1970s-80s. by 'beginners' i mean it has three modes: bulb, aperture priority (you pick the aperture and it'll decide the shutter speed for you), and 1/90th shutter speed (used primarily for syncing a flash).
this camera changed everything for me, and if you're thinking of getting into analogue photography, you can do a LOT worse than this character. taking one side of the exposure triangle (in this case shutter speed) out of the equation is perfect for beginners. just rotate the lens to the aperture you want, and the internal light meter will decide on the perfect shutter speed for you. it'll beep at you if your shot's likely to be over or under exposed, you can change lenses (most on ebay come with a 50mm prime lens, this one i'm using is a 28-70mm telephoto lens with macro that, gods bless, came with the camera. ebay, man. sometimes there be gems), and while pleasingly heavy, it's not too cumbersome that you can't wander around with it around your neck.
i put my go to film (kodak ultramax 400, perfect for overcast glasgow days) and took a bunch of shots; naturally, my immediate thought was birds.
being that this has a glass lens as opposed to the plastic of my point and shoots, and given the power i now had over the focus and aperture, these shots came out beautifully. and it's really not a hard camera to use either - load your film, set the iso on the dial on the top, hold it up to your face and listen to what it's telling you to do. take the shot, wind it (it has a really satisfying winder lever, like most cameras of this age and type, which isn't super important, but is pretty cool).
i took so many photos on that camera. sadly, before our annual shetland trip this year, it appeared the light seals had degraded without my knowledge. i wrote about that here. fret not though! i loved this camera so much that i sold it for spares and repair and bought a replacement, keeping the lens of course.
anyway, all this camera talk leads me nicely onto the next bit:
Part Four: Gear Acquisition Syndrome
first off, i love how well known this affliction is among vintage camera nerds and film photographers in general that it has a name. granted, that name is referred to as GAS which is unfortunate, but it's a real affliction, especially given how cheap old cameras are on ebay and the like. i am... not immune.
learning all about lomography and their ethos, and loving the aesthetic of twin lens reflex (TLR) cameras, finding myself a Lubitel 2, made in 1962 by the LOMO company of the USSR, was both easy and inevitable.
this was a whole different beast than i was used to. for a start, it doesn't take 35mm film, it shoots 120, whose rolls are generally cheaper to buy, more expensive to develop, and give you (in this camera at least) only 12 shots per roll. the camera is also fully manual, with no internal electronics, meaning you need to set the shutter speed and aperture yourself and rely on an external light meter or, more accurately to me, taking an educated guess (i do also have a light meter app on my phone).
the thing about this camera that took it from "oooh, pretty" to "i have to own this" is that once you've taken a shot, it doesn't lock the shutter like many other cameras. you don't have to wind the film on before you take the next shot. which could be disastrous if you've forgotten to wind on, or could be used to fun effect - this camera from 1962 takes multiple exposures. what many might feel is a detraction - you have to rely on memory because the camera doesn't remember shit - i saw as a boon. i found one on ebay in stunning condition on auction. i placed my bid, and i waited.
obviously, learning to use a full manual camera that predates my birth by 23 years was diffcult, but also really bloody fun. i mean, 'lubitel' literally means 'amateur' in russian; you won't find an iso dial or anything beyond the levers and dials on the front of the camera. but that manual control, combined with the larger image you get with 120 film (which itself means there's less grain than in 35mm), and the ability to take multiple exposures, well. i've had a lot of fun with my lubitel 2. this camera and the aforementioned nikon em are my two 'Main' cameras. if i'm out and about, i'll throw a point and shoot in my bag. if i have a project or want a nicer set of images, i'll go with my big two.
anyway. over the next few months i picked up a few more cameras - some were presents, others were well timed ebay auctions, and one i won in an instagram giveaway competition. i now have 8 film cameras - most 35mm, one 120, one 110! but i'm not a collector for the sake of hanging them on my wall. if you wanna be my camera, you've gotta get with my desire to load you with film and take pictures.
and for now at least, my collection is as complete as i'm allowing it to get. i can't ever take all 8 with me on a day's trip after all, so i'm going to use the ones i have and use them specifically to hone my craft, such as it is.
Interlude: Saying goodbye
this is related, i promise. we didn't have a funeral for laura; instead, we contracted Pure Cremation who, with dignity, picked her up from the hospital and delivered her boyfriend her ashes later. despite living in manchester, the hills and lochs of scotland always meant everything to her; she'd talked endlessly about eventually moving up here like i did nearly 7 years ago. so, when we were ready, laura's boyfriend drove up and stayed with us for a couple of days. we took laura to the banks of the beautiful, picturesque and gloriously serene loch katrine. it's not a place we could really get to without a car, so it's unlikely we'll visit again, but it was a beautiful day, a peaceful day, and we got to lay my sister to rest.
i took the lubitel.
it was a bittersweet day. i'm glad it happened, and i'm still devastated. moving on.
Part Five: Photowalks!
the thing about film photography - photography of any kind really - is that it can be quite a solitary pursuit. you pop it round your neck or in your pocket, head out, take some pretty pictures, then come home. even developing, you can do that from home or you can send it in the post to a lab. i could do this entirely on my own if i really wanted to (well, if i didn't have the compulsion to write about it and share my stuff all over social media).
i heard about the concept of a photowalk - a person organises a route, and folks turn up and then walk that route, taking photos the entire time.
i've always been a solitary person. i lived alone for many years and honestly loved it. i've never really felt lonely at any point unless i've been missing someone specific. so dylan having local friends and meeting up with them and stuff while i stayed at home on the internet never fazed me at all. but, when we moved up here to glasgow, we had a couple of months to explore before covid happened and we were all locked down. to this day there's still a lot of my local surrounding area i've not explored, and so when analogue wonderland launched its Big Film Photowalk in june, i bought a ticket and tagged along, figuring i'd see much more of the city.
and i did! i took 4 rolls of film and shot them all. i took my lubitel and my nikon and had a blast of a time. i took some shots i'm really pleased with even looking back, and met some folks i'm thrilled to call my friends.
since then, thanks to a wonderful chap called stu, i've been on a couple more walks (these ones are free, thank god). stu's a great organiser, he knows exactly what makes a great photo, and i've met so many lovely, wonderful people along the way. in fact, i went on a walk a mere 3 days ago - those shots have yet to be developed as the lab's closed for the festive period.
that feels like a nice place to stop for now. next up - and i promise the post won't be nearly as long as these two, and will maybe have some more photos, who knows - it's the big conclusion, which you can read right flipping here!
if you're buying film in the uk, i can't recommend Analogue Wonderland enough. they sell all sorts of weird and wonderful film, and if you follow that link you'll get a coupon for a FREE roll of Kentmere Pan 400, a decent quality black and white film. oh, and when you've finished your roll, send it off to Gulabi - they're cheap, provide high quality scans, and they're super fast too. i'm not paid for this, btw. i just really like these two companies keeping the film dream alive!
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