These past few months I have talked about my attempt (and so far success) with the capsule wardrobe plan. I've also talked about how I don't care to organize my digital archives. And I have mentioned that there is nothing quite like film.
All of these things have been on my mind.
Less stuff ... could that translate to less photos? Should that translate to less photos? Hmmmmm.
I like film for many reasons but one of them is that you get what you get. It's limited to 36 photos. That's it.
I decided to try an experiment and for the first half of October and I kept my film camera in plain sight so I'd remember to take a photo of Ellerie each day. (It sat right on her bookshelf which meant I ended up capturing a lot of post nap photos.) It's crazy how badly I wanted to just use the whole roll at once. Or how much I wanted to glance down and see if I had indeed captured her head tilt.
But I waited (as film forces you to do). And tried as hard as I could to just take one photo a day.
And almost every day I failed and took at least two (which is why my experiment ended on 10/19 instead of 10/31).
But there were more than a few times when I thought maybe (hopefully?) I had captured magic.
Last week I dropped off the photos (I develop at a local place) and waited my one hour until pickup. And then frantically ripped open the package before I was out the door.
Sigh.
I got it. I got it. The head tilt.
But what thrilled me more is that these photos are so her right now. The expressions! EEEKS! Some of these are not the expressions that would catch my eye if I was picking from 40 different but similar photos from my DSLR or iPhone. They are not the moments I would choose to print if I had my pick from infinite digital storage. But they are the ones that I got during the month of October. And somehow that makes them so amazingly her. Her fifteen-month old personality radiates through these.
It's a little early to be setting 2015 goals (just kidding, it's never too early), but I think I'm going to attempt to take one roll of Ellerie a month next year. I'll stick my printed 4x6 photos in a beautiful album just like the old days. I'll frame my favorites with huge white mats in our hallway (finally! a plan for the hallway!). I'll worry less about getting my big camera out and see if I can make it work with just film and the iPhone.
Sounds like a plan.
*I've had a Canon EOS Rebel XS since high school that I still use whenever I shoot film. I shoot with this 50mm lens. My photo developer sticks the images on a CD for me, so these are the un-touched digital files.
