All the details are a little foggy as I consider the best way to capture Italy this fall. Do I really have the courage—the audacity to try and do it on film? It is one thing to take the Leica MP off the shelf, load it with Portra 400 and go for a walk around the neighborhood exploring and looking for moments, great light or old cars. It is quite another to be confident enough to fly across the world and know that I will be rewarded with something beautiful or even worth while when returning three-weeks later. Okay, that makes me a little nervous.
Wait a second. I am old enough to remember when I did just that, take film pictures. I was born in 1965. Film was what we had. It was life as we knew it. In fact, we filled volumes of photo albums with memories caught on film: cousins, family picnics, summer vacations, Christmas mornings, first dates, funerals and baby pictures—sometimes even the naked ones before it got creepy or criminal for that matter. Why does film seem so scary now?
Of course…, that was also before digital cameras. “Chimping” was not yet a term. A Polaroid INSTANT PHOTO took 20-agonizing minutes to develop while you tried to speed it up by waving it in the air or putting it under your armpit. This was before we all wore seatbelts and way before airbags. A time when you had a drink beside a pilot in the airport lounge and the airplane actually had a “smoking section”.
Now that I think about it, in comparison, maybe the film thing isn’t so scary afterall. How did I even survive the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s? And, I have pictures to prove it.
Italy in 2022 with a Leica MP and a bag of film. How bad could it be? It’s not like I have to worry about getting lung cancer in a plane with Two-Martini Mike at the flight controls. Now, if we can just dodge another wave of the Corona Virus…..
