secondhand beauties

Today I submitted my proposal for my semester long independent study. Over the next five months I'll be capturing images with cameras from my personal assortment of film and instant cameras. Though they’ve not seen a roll of film in decades, each film camera in my collection is a secondhand beauty. I’m sure however with a new roll of film, each will find stories that they'll want to share. I'm happy to have saved them.

The essence and beauty of photography is found in its most physical and tangible medium. A photograph is story intended to be printed, held, displayed, and shared.

secondhand light

After a well needed and successful breather from classes over the past month, today is the beginning of my Spring semester and my yearlong sprint towards a December graduation. Aside from the annual reruns of holiday soundtracks, television programs, mountains of sugar coma sparkly treats, and family fruitcake, I was happy to occasionally locate some quality time for my own thoughts during the academic break.

Usually with a coffee mug at my side, I spent plenty of hours during the holidays with my varied and extremely eclectic film and instant camera collection. Dating as far back as the 1930s, each of them are secondhand, left behinds, or strays and all beautiful works of art in themselves. All have their own distinct character and personality and I can only imagine the stories, celebrations, and places they've each seen. Our eclecticism seems to parallel one another perfectly, promising an exciting journey as I search for light through their viewfinders this semester.

Together, we'll have a story to tell. No fruitcake required.