Anticipation

Back in the day, when I was still learning photography using a film camera (my father’s Canon A1), buying a roll of film was pretty darn exhilarating. Well, first of all, ‘twas due to the fact that I could hardly afford any – I was a high school student then – and times when I had the chance to steal/beg/borrow some cash were rare. Once every four months or so, I went to the photo center in Alturas (it’s still there, I think) to buy a 36-roll Kodak or to BQ Arcade to grab some Fujifilms which were cheaper. Sometimes, I get my stash from Ramasola Superstudio which sold 36-shot Agfa films that had a couple or so extra frames at the end – such joy winding the frame to 38 or 40!

That was the bulk of my shooting then. No digital cameras yet. No cellphone cameras either. I shot film which regularly kicked me in the face with more than half a roll of garbage. But, I was not to be deterred. Or, maybe I was somehow deterred but stubbornly went back at it because I easily forget. But mostly, it was the thrill of shooting film though. The thrill in the hunt for the perfect capture.

See, during those times, photography classes and workshops were hard to come by. There were only a few people doing photography so I did not have photo buddies of any sort. My father taught me a few things and I had a single photography book to guide me through. Nothing more. So, most of my frames were estimates and experiments while trying to memorize the settings for different shooting conditions. One time, I had to list down the settings for every frame as a guide. But still, nobody really knew what was to finally come up on the negatives.