I balance my digital camera – a Nikon D3200 with a Sigma 17mm to 50mm zoom lens – in my hand, holding it by the lens, the opening of the glass towards my eyes.
‘What is it that I fear?’ I want to ask of it, but a digital camera cannot answer such question. So I keep quiet and stand with the camera in my hand as fear and uncertainty course through my body. The feelings subside eventually and I let the camera be, returning it to its place on my desk.
I am due to leave for a long week-end by the coast the following day and the choice of what camera to bring along settles in my mind like the most important decision for this trip. I have struggled with photography this winter, practicing little of it and consuming even less. A part of it is natural. My photography output always lessens in the dark days of a northern hemisphere winter. But this year feels different. The fragmentation of community following the Twitter exodus has disconnected me from the #BelieveInFilm community. In the past it has been a place of refuge and a drive to my creativity. The choice to cut myself off most social media platforms has come at the cost of relying a lot more on myself for creativity and drive. Most of that drive has been focused on words. And maybe too, in the refusal to pick up my cameras, to develop film, to process my images there is a form of mourning the changes within the community?
Whatever the explanation, I am intent in finding a way for photography to return within the routine of my life. It would be easy to pick up my trusty Minolta SRT303 with its Rokkor 24mm to 50mm lens and a few rolls of Ilford FP4, but a part of me does not want to. I have spent the last three months deep into creative thinking, challenging a lot of my long-ingrained habits. Choosing film is the easy choice. I know my set-up inside out. I only need to hold the camera to relax into the world. It is an extension of my eyes, easily operated without sparing a thought for or glance to the gear. My mind can make a strong case for why I should not deviate from this set-up. After all, every other times I have tried, my experiences only reinforced why my set-up is currently perfect for me.
Digital scares me. It carries with it the weight of boredom, the memories of excess and ease. I remind myself that gear is only a tool. I can operate it as I want. Photography is photography regardless of the internals of a camera. I glance at the digital camera on the desk, thinking of the mechanical one downstairs by bicycle gear. My brain swirls with doubt, pushed and pulled between the two cameras.
I open Mastodon and share my worries if only to get them out of my head. I won’t admit it, but it is also a plea for someone to make a decision for me. Nobody does. Instead Bill Thoo replies with those words:
I find that if it’s photography without a goal, then I’ll take whatever takes my fancy. Usually film, as I get more enjoyment from it. I’m more disciplined about bringing the “correct” gear if I have a result I really want to get in mind. Sometimes the goal is learning to use new gear.
‘Sometimes the goal is learning to use new gear.’ I mumble the sentence to myself. Yes, I think. Sometimes the goal is learning the new gear. I am not planning on creating any life changing or prize worthy images. This is a week-end trip, one in which I want to reacquaint myself with photography. I can make the use of my creative space about learning to use the digital camera. It is a simple enough goal, one I cannot fail since a failure would only point to changes I need to make. The fear of leaving my Minolta behind lessens. I pack the digital camera and three batteries with me. I hesitate an instant about adding the tripod to the mix but decide against it. I want to keep it simple and uncluttered.
On the road to Devon, I hold the camera in my hands in an attempt to learn its contours. I want it to grow familiar. I flick through the settings trying to find the correct ones for me. I keep only the bare minimum data in the viewfinder and practice moving my fingers along the buttons and wheel without moving my eye away from the viewfinder. I tentatively pressed the shutter a couple of times as we drive by, freezing scenes that catch my eyes as we speed through the countryside, scenes I would have never bothered trying to capture with the film camera. There, I tell myself. You’re already creating images. I smile, feeling good about one of the strength of digital for me: enabling more experimentation.
I forget the camera as we near the cottage. The world has turned to darkness and I am tired. I unpack the car with my partner, place each item around the various rooms to feel settled before we eat dinner. Afterwards, I peruse the maps of local walks left on the dining table by the hosts. The following day I will head out along some of the green doted lines, camera in hand. The jitteriness of the night before returns but I quieten it easily. I only have one camera with me. The choice has already been made.
In my bag, I find my G.B. Kershaw 450 with a half exposed roll of 120. I had forgotten to take it out of my daily bag. It is telling that it is still there amongst my notebooks, so settled in its place, so unused in recent weeks that I have forgotten about it.
In the morning, I walk out with the camera and realise I have not attached a strap to it. I carry it in my hand, unwilling to place it in my bag for it to be forgotten. An image soon reveals itself to me. I effortlessly dial in the settings and frame the photo. I am slow at it, but slow is normal. The button layout is not yet part of my muscle memory. I fall into a flow of raising the camera to my eye, refining the settings, framing, and pressing the shutter. I feel okay about this new tool but uncertainty lingers. I have grown so used to my analogue set-up that I know roughly what to expect from the negative once I get to it. Here I am unsure of what the results are. It feels like a gamble every time I press the shutter, a gamble that drives me to press again and again. Having multiple options for one image is not a bad thing, far from it, but I feel myself creating options for no reasons. Scenes I would not have looked at twice with the film camera, get logged into the SD card of the digital camera. Maybe I’ll make something of this one, I tell myself. And maybe I will. But without intent and an idea of where I’m going with the image, I doubt it.
I start to flick through the photos in the SD card folder, forgetting to be in the landscape and too worried about my images. They all leave me numb. I do not care for them, nor do I know how accurate the feedback is from this camera. I grumble at myself for being so easily pulled by the screen and make a mental note to stop. I take a breath, turn the camera off, and return my attention to the walk. I resist the pull of the play button, I return to being critical in my choice of images. Still, the flash of light from the preview on the screen below the viewfinder bothers me. It is not the fault of the gear that I am drawn to the screen, but I resent it anyway.
The walk ends. I review the number of images I have created. There is over a hundred. I know many images are duplicates but already I feel the dread of processing this number. I pop the battery out and put it on charge, forgetting the camera.
That evening, the stars are out. I sit on the bench by the cottage, wrapped in my puffy jacket and a blanket. Propped on the armrest is the G.B. Kershaw, my fingers resting on the shutter as I sit watching the earth move in space. I feel at ease with the film camera. I have no idea what I’m doing with astrophotography but the camera feels known and secure against my skin. I trust it. I trust my knowledge and relationship with it.
I am unsure how much time passes before I lift my finger away from the shutter, hoping the cold did not make me clinch too hard and cause enough shake that it will become visible. In truth, I do not really mind. I pack up the camera, forget about the image, and return inside to slide under the warm duvet of the bed.
The week-end carries on with the Nikon in my hands, a companion that is growing on me. I find myself more mindful of what and how I choose to photograph but still the camera never feels quite right. The screen pulls me in more than I want and I do not enjoy the process as much as I would like. This bugs me. Photography does not feel as I want it to. I do not lose myself in the surroundings, the sights, the smell, the wind on my skin. I remain tethered to the tool in my hand, the camera and my body two entirely separate entities.
Back home, I return the camera to my desk with little desire to see the photos. I am not surprised by my lack of interest in them. In many ways, delayed image processing has become my modus operandi. I have taken to developing my rolls of film months after they have been exposed and it suits me. I gain time to distance myself from the close emotions attached to each frame. After weeks of waiting and forgetting, each rolls reveal to me a past state of mind, drench me in memories, but also remain a step away from those moments. They are of the past, the memories softened and partially digested. The images hold both moments in time and aesthetic values I am able to judge without the taint of immediacy. So I choose to wait and not look at the digital images from the long week-end. My emotions about the trip are too raw still, my mixed feelings about the camera tangled into a thick knotted thread.
Late into the week, whilst chatting with friends about my experience with the Nikon, it dawns on me why I have come back from the the coast with mixed feelings regarding my choice of gear. It should have been obvious, but the worry of the unknown kept the answer from me. When I step outside of the house with no specific photographic goal in mind, I do not think in term of photography. My experience is one of mindfulness, my mind cleared of any thoughts as my body engages fully with the world. The film camera is perfect for this. I have come to know it so intimately, I can operate without a thought and know the result to come. It does not tempt me outside of my environment with the lure of screens. In the instant of creating the image, the act of photography is more important than the latent image on the negative. Sure I still consider composition and light but this is an almost subconscious process, one led by my engagement with my surroundings, my state of mind, and the flow of time. Once the shutter is pressed, the image is both ingrained in my brain and forgotten instantly.
This does not mean the Nikon has no space in my life. It has opened the door to self-portraiture and the exploration of abstraction. But those processes are as opposite to stepping out of the house with no goal in mind as I can be. Whilst I do not know the details of the self-portraits I want to create or the shapes I want to play with, I still have a goal. My eyes are drawn to details in which I can place my body or that speak of geometry and light. I am out to create a photograph rather than to freeze a moment in time. This is a process that demands I engage with my gear rather than let it be an extension of me. With that thought comes the realisation that the Nikon was the wrong choice for my long week-end away. I did not step onto the clifftop footpaths with the idea of working on my series of self-portraits or explore abstraction. I stepped out to engage with the world, to clear my head, to walk. The Minolta should have been my companion. Still, it was not a wasted experience. I have gleaned one more piece of clarity in my relationship with photography and the tools available to me. And that to me is a success.