After the first year I'll backtrack a bit and tell you guys a bit more (born and raised in Tennessee, more than a decade in Virginia, and I still can't bring myself to say or write y'all.) about the hows and whys of why I decided to try film, but I wanted to take one small moment and just say thank you to my friend Christine.

Despite never having heard her voice, she and I chat a lot. Texts and emails throughout the week, we're often using each other as sounding boards or dumping grounds, call it what you will. We connect, and that connection keeps me going sometimes. Ain't the internet grand? I mean it. Seriously. Some of the friends I've found in these regions have just floored me.

Anyway, it was during one of our rambles that I might have whispered, "I'm thinking about trying film." Let me back up a bit, again. I have shot film. My dad got me a Nikon camera when I was about 14, and I spent a long, happy time shooting black and white. Flowers and churches in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I looked at contact sheets and had prints printed. And that's about all I remember. I don't have a romantic connection to shooting film, and I certainly have no muscle memory of it. Ask me to quote the script of Little House on the Prairie or Emergency! and I've got you covered, no problem. Some things get lost in the mist of time.

So I was as clueless as a newborn babe, and you know what? I kind of like it that way. 35 mm, medium format, Kodak, Fuji, it was all new to me. Soaking up knowledge is the best feeling. The only catch? I didn't have a camera.

I didn't have a camera, and not knowing how I was going to feel about this grand experiment, I was hesitant to drop a wad of cash on one. Enter Christine.

"I have a Pentax you can borrow. It's actually my favorite camera." A few short (or long, depending on your patience level) days later, and the PentaxK1000 and a series of lenses was in my hands. Simple, generous gesture from her. Fill-me-up, gratitude-overflowing moment for me. And really, this camera is more than just the loan of something she cares for, it's a tangible symbol of her support of every little creative nugget I consider. What a gift that is.

And so it begins. I'm pretty much a firm believer in trusting signs from the Universe, and when Christine offered to loan me her Pentax, I took that as a sign that I was supposed to have some faith and take that first step on this journey.

I was ready to hold it lightly. Ready not to be good at it or like it or love it. Did she know? Did I know that it would change my life?

All three photos above were shot on Kodak UltraMax 400, Pentax K1000

I’ve been trying for ages to figure out how to write this blog post, which, while neither alarming nor revelatory, feels particularly intimate to me. I talk here a lot about my work and about feeling all the feels, but in many ways I skim the surface of creativity and photography and my place in it. Truth is, taking pictures, and working behind the lens is…. Well, what can I say except, it matters to me.

There’s been no great mystery to the fact that I’ve been a creative slump since forever. Since early last summer, for sure. And then Violet died. That didn’t help. I try to be patient in those times. To trust that there’s deep work happening, even if it feels like a slog through thick mud when you’re in the middle of it.

And a lot was going on. I was testing a new camera, and I was changing, or at least trying to, my shooting style. I was getting deep into teaching photography, and that requires a creativity of a whole different kind. Still, when I was shooting, nothing I tried felt comfortable or successful. Sometimes that’s the way it goes for awhile.

When I was in the middle of it, It felt like a really long time. Too long really, and I started to despair. Days turned into weeks, and my work felt shoddy and forced. I didn’t even really know what I liked to shoot anymore. I kept taking pictures though. To me, that’s the important thing. To just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Bird by bird, if you will.

And then I did something I swore up and down and ten times to Sunday that I'd never, ever do. I decided to try shooting film.

Kodak UltraMax 400, Shot on a Pentax K1000

Seriously? I’m impatient, not smart and certainly not skilled enough to shoot film. Or at least I thought I was. But here I am. It started with a conversation on a West Virginia farm. It continued in a talk in a bread baker’s kitchen. Every step of the way the universe whispered to me, “just try it.” Every time I whispered back, "maybe?" a friend would lift me up with a resounding YES. And I have more to share on that later.

So I listened. And I did.

All I know is that when I opened my first set of film scans, (developed at my local Walgreen’s no less), I was happy with my pictures for the first time in ages. That photo up there of Cal? I might have shed a little tear when I first saw it.

I have more to share about this journey, most especially about the signs from the Universe and the dear friends who've helped me along the way. That is, if you care to listen. But for now, I’ll say simply this. I shoot film.

the gift of friendship, a lesson in film

brand new day {still + life}