Caught on Film: Black & White, Take 2

I love black & white film. I really do.

I love friends who'll let me sit there with a camera in their face until they begin to relax and then off goes that beautiful mechanical shutter. 

I love friends who'll grin manically at the camera and look forward to seeing the results, even though they have no idea how it will actually turn out (ah the joys of film).

I love my pentax and I love photography and I love lazy days like those captured in these images.

Caught on Film: Black & White, Take 1

By the time I finally got this roll of film developed, I could hardly remember taking half of the photos!! Film photography really is all a giant learning process. There's the obvious things, like learning to frame a photo, remembering to set the aperture and considering the lighting, but more than that, patience and thoughtfulness come to mean completely different things, especially in this 'now, now, now' little world of ours. 

One of the reasons I tell people that I started my photography ventures with the Pentax is that often, with my iPhone, it's the photos that I look at straight after taking and think 'ugh' that end up becoming my favourites (if I haven't already deleted them on a whim). I figured, by taking photos on film I'd force myself to really learn about photography and maybe to change my own ideas about what I like, about what I find beautiful or challenging or just worth keeping, really. But it has somehow become a lot more than that - it has become a constant lesson in thoughtfulness and restraint on one hand, and spontaneity and just jumping in there on the other... 

Anyways, enough of my vaguely philosophical rambling!! Hope you enjoy the photos - there's plenty more to come :)

Over and out.

Rhi :)

This one taken by the lovely Tim Lock :)

Caught on Film & an "Iced Barack Obama"

Today, I helped out at one of my favourite coffee haunts. The little brother got home from leavers (schoolies, whatever you wanna call it), safe & sound, and we had a grand conversation that included a discussion about the joys of British insults (twat). I drank 4 coffees. I pondered the merits of the potato as a romantic gift. 3 of the coffees were given to me for free by my lovely friend. I ate some tasty gelato, also given to my by another lovely friend. And as if that wasn't all grand enough, one of the coffees I drank has been dubbed the "Iced Barack Obama"**.

The Wildest of Dreams is officially off hiatus, except I expect it might be a little different around here. It didn't last long, but that's because somehow not having the pressure of posting magically cleared my mind and helped me to realise a few things. I'll explain more later, maybe, but in the meantime, I hope you enjoy the rest of the photos from the roll of film behind my "Honesty" post.

Over and out.

Rhi :)

**Sadly this is only its temporary title, although I'm still hoping the name sticks :P

Caught on Film: Honesty

"I love unmade beds. I love when people are drunk and emotional and cannot be anything but honest in that moment. I love the look in people's eyes when they first wake up and they've forgotten their surroundings. I love the gasp people take when their favourite character dies. I love laying next to someone in the dark listening to their thoughts drift off of their tongues and then lingering in the space between us. I love when people close their eyes and drift to somewhere in the clouds. I fall in love with people and their honest moments all the time. I fall in love with their breakdowns and their smeared makeup and their daydreams. I fall in love with their honesty."

Caught on Film: Roll 2

The pentax has been on a bit of a holiday lately while I try to get a few things sorted. I realised this morning though that I'm yet to share these photos from my unofficial second roll of film. I have a few more waiting to be developed that'll hopefully be making an appearance here soon as well :)

How beautiful are those roses?

Caught on Film: Roll 1

The Pentax is finally working!!! I already said this on my coffee crawl posts, but it wasn't really as emphasised as much as it deserved, because this camera is a babe :P

For what we're going to call my first roll of film, I went through 24 exposures in double time, without thinking about composition and often forgetting to set the aperture, because I thought this roll would just turn up blank like its predecessor and I was just taking photos to make sure it was still broken before I took it back to the repairman. Turns out, it was when I finally stopped bothering about taking nice photos that it decided to work :D 

Still, like I said, this camera is a babe so there were still some lovely photos stowed away in that precious little packet of prints!

A special thanks goes to this guy for all his friendly photo-taking encouragement :)

PS. I've completely failed at crawling into a hole to study up. I figure there'll be time for that next week :P