Vacation Film

I always liked getting a stack of prints in a drugstore envelope, negatives stashed in the little front pocket.  Remember checking store flyers for coupons that you’d rip out in the store as neatly as possible and hand in with your vacation photos for free double prints, etc?   Or that little excitement you’d feel as you opened the prints the first time, unsure what you would find?   I miss that. That’s what these are.

On our second to last day, we were just getting to the coast when my digital’s battery died.  I pulled out the  two film cameras I’d brought along.  One, a Polaroid, provided instant gratification and assurance that at least two points of our drive would be recorded.  But the Yashica electro G was the one to capture the coastline for me.. and require a little faith.

It’s not like it’s hard to operate, it has a light meter and all, but even so I shot half a roll of film at the wrong speed setting because I forgot to change it when I changed rolls.  And there was no going back, it was getting late and we had the entire Highway 1 to make it down.  This was one of the things I most wanted to photograph.  I remember thinking, “Well, if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.”

 

And it was, because I fell in love with the prints.  I know they could be better, and that they didn’t catch all of the drive because the sun went down, but it was instant nostalgia.

Film is so familar and comforting to me.  Not that I’m a master.  Hardly.  I used point and shoot until my twenties and by the time I was thirty, had retired my Minolta to a closet.  Even during those 35mm years, I only pulled the thing out to shoot my babies.   But, oh, they were good shots.  I am very unpracticed at this, but I did have fun.