A roll of film from fall

 

Because this is a blog and no one reads blogs anymore. Because I'm not on social media anymore. Because I don't know how to share intimacy with strangers, and I'm not sure I want to, but also I'm not gonna hide this light under a bushel no

Here is the whole roll. Every image crisp and bright. I made these on Belinda's camera, an N2000, leant to me by Holly. 

When I took it in to Blue Moon because it could only beep - not advance, not rewind, not release, not open and close the shutter - the man who took the film out for me in their film loading closet told me to just toss the camera body and get a different, older, manual model. The lens, he said, is fine. I lament this advice, and my amateur's willingness to accept it in the face of a crotchety, snobbety expert. I left with my disdained heirloom. I want to save this camera but I can't make it work. 

Now, new batteries don't do anything. I clean the contact points. I mull over youtube. She doesn't even beep anymore. Nothing. Holly says she will take the broken body back - it does not have to work to be valuable. I try to find out exactly the lens: 28-50, and then a 70-macro range. She swivels into and out of herself. 3.5-22 aperture. I read Nikon body reviews on reddit. None of this is photography - to me: I want to witness the world. Instead I am in a maze of references, make dates, serial numbers. I am thinking of money. I want to be thinking of leaves and eyelashes. 

 These images are caught light from the body of a ghost

Kira and Z and I conspired through conflict and misunderstanding and vague texts to get some film photos of them in the fall of their senior years. At the last minute as we slash and burned bad plans and jumped into the car to go to the land that used to be Christine's farm and now is Laura's home and simply always was Wapato, and held me when I didn't know that this future could exist - but when I drove out there I felt stronger to move toward it. As we drove, we all breathed out what we had thought and made space for what could be.

The conditions were perfect. The camera allowed us 20 exposures.

Here ya go, world.