The Life and Times of the Plume

I’m sure I failed to tell you that Robert gifted me with an old film camera for Christmas.  I was delighted.  I started with a film camera when I was very very little — my grandmother on my dad’s side of the family gave me a pink and black point and shoot camera at the age of six or so that I used constantly until I upgraded to something else sometime in high school.  Speaking of high school, I took eight semesters worth of film photography there which included film developing and print making in a glorious darkroom.  I loved those classes very much.  Between then and now, I’ve become a full-time working artist (or creative, or whatever you want to call what I do for a living) (everything I can think to call myself sounds a little pretentious), despite the fact that I’m a university drop-out by way of three different institutions.  I think instruction is a wonderful thing but there’s no substitute for simply diving into a medium and figuring out your style on your own by muddling through the troughs and crests of creative flow.  Never mind being elbow deep, get neck deep in your medium and don’t think for a second there’s a right or wrong way to do it.

Now I’m rabbit trailing a little and pontificating a lot so here’s the bottom line, I’ve always enjoyed photography so returning to my film-y roots has been a true joy.  What I cherish about film photography is the delayed gratification.  I send it away to be processed and looking at the developed image files is always a surprise for me.  I didn’t have to re-learn a film camera.  It was like a bicycle — I climbed back on and began to effortlessly swoop about on the asphalt.

The other important thing I want to mention about film is each image I shoot costs me about a dollar so I find myself slowing down and choosing my shots wisely.  It’s not for everyone, but it’s for me.  I like the pace.  I like the sound of the shutter.  I like that there is no immediate result on a screen on the back of the camera.  Sometimes I think film is one of the last great things.

Anyway, here are some of my favorite photos from the month of May.  They were taken, respectively, in a hotel room in Missoula, on the Owyhee River of Oregon/Idaho, at Little Payette Lake of Idaho and Shepp Ranch on the Main Salmon River of Idaho.

No digital image has the grit, grain or feel of film photography, even if you take the time to add some grain back into your image in Photoshop.  It might be obsolete, but it’s still very beautiful.  I hope you think so too because I’m going to keep on shooting and sharing.