There’s a moment where I received an old camera in a musty box. It waited under my lecture hall seat and I opened it after in the crowded lobby, full of nervous energy and marveling at the weight of the thing. My friend was quickly informed and we toyed with it in his dorm room all that warm Autumn afternoon.
Running film through it, listening to it rattle and purr. Standing on my friend’s back deck, shooting a slow pan around his face, my nose filled with the scent of old metal and moldering leaves.
The mystery and simplicity of black and white reversal film. Loading it into the camera in darkness–shining light through it in a cool, dark room; illuminating drifting dust and blown out images of South Carolina hill country. Walking out after into the sunwarmed day, my heart pounding, my head busy with cinematic dreams.
I long for those days, for the practical shape and color of 1960’s metal, the bareness of a single take, the lonely wild sound of waterfalls and the drive home along winding dusk roads that ended in YouTube video marathons, pizza rolls and Izze.