On a journey
The number of times I’ve thought in a quite down moment, “I should update my blog“ is a little ridiculous. Because, well, frankly it’s been a few years for no good reason other than that I didn’t feel like it. I’ve gone on many an adventure over the years that I’ve documented, but less and less have I been taking proper pictures. Proper in the sense that I used a camera not on my phone.
I gave back an adored lens to my brother, kept forgetting to charge my camera batteries, and next thing you know it’s iPhone only. Not that it’s bad, or that it stopped me from doing little edits on social, but it just didn’t feel the same. No rush to get home to upload what I shot to my computer. No thrill of hoping I got something good or as I imagined it in my head. Just, tap, edit in VSCO, and share. Turns out I love the journey of taking a “proper” photo.
I love toy cameras and have a little collection of them. Most I’ve never used and are just cool to look at. They’re of course all film and if I can’t get myself to charge my dang digital camera, you better believe I’m not shooting film right now. Anyway, my partner, Sean, is sponsored by Camp Snap and gets to try out all the new cameras. They’re basically digital point and shoot cameras with the only settings being preset filters and optional flash. I’ve been wanting one, but felt silly asking for it. Absolutely no reason to feel silly, but I finally got around to it last week and of course Sean not only obliged but gave me options. And just like that, I started scheming up all the things I’ve been wanting to take pictures of. As if I wasn’t allowed to take a picture of these things on my iPhone. Clearly I’ve got a lot of imaginary barriers in my brain.
The first opportunity to take it on a real spin was on a ritual that Sean asked me to be apart of. We had an alter setup for Día de los Muertos, which featured pictures from both our families, some who very recently passed. By this week the flowers had drooped and it was time to throw them out. Sean had an idea of releasing them to the water. To go back to the earth. To become something new.
