We meet again

Today was one of those days where everything went better than you could have hoped for.

I had turned up an hour early for my afternoon class by accident so when I went back the second time I wasn't particularly in the mood to be there. The fact that the rain had stopped and the sun was out had nothing to do with it. After waiting for some time (lateness is standard in classes here) a girl came in and announce that our teacher had got stuck in Taipei so we were free to go.

Plans of reading on the roof had begun to make the transition from dream to reality in my head on the walk back to dorms, but somehow the idea didn't seem to quite fit the situation. No, it was time to be reunited with an old friend.

I've read quite a few interviews or biography articles about photographers and in almost every one (you can almost guarantee it) there's the cheesy line about how they have fond memories of the first photograph they took when they were two, and how suddenly, magically, they knew what they wanted to do with they're lives. It makes me cringe every time. But unfortunately I'm a little bit of a hypocrite. I don't remember my first photograph, and certainly didn't feel some intrinsic connection to life as a result of it, but I do have a slightly unhealthy relationship with one of my cameras.

Since I've gotten here I've pretty much been shooting digital, and it's great; convenient, light weight, etc. etc. But there's only so long you can take it for. It's lacking in something.

Enter, the old Canon 35mm SLR. I don't use it often but not because I don't want to. It's like a perfect film, or a fine wine, if you partake too often, you start to forget how unusual it is to find something of that quality. Even though, you promise yourself you won't, eventually you will take said thing for granted. But equally, such things should not be locked away, or covered up for protection, for that, is denying the world what they have to offer (which is even worse.)

In my experience (which, granted, is not much,) 'absence makes the heart fantasise.' But my old friend did not let me down. Out I went to wonder round campus in search of hidden treasures. I found a little something, took an uncharacteristically long time to set up the shot, apprehensively put finger to trigger, trying not to hold my breathe and pressed. There it was, that familiar sound I had been waiting for that lets you know that something exciting just happened inside the machine in your hands, tempting you to open the back to find out what, even though you know you can't. But it doesn't end there. You pull the lever and feel the film winding on, lining up raring to go for picture number two. That's when you know that you just made something worth while. Even if it doesn't turn out, it was still worth the make.

After a day of that, I defy anyone not to be feeling pretty happy and chilled out. You can love digital photography to a point, but the knowledge that you just squeezed a few million pixels together does not compare to a good old fashioned chemical reaction. That would be like comparing instant coffee to that which has been carefully brewed in a moka pot. (I do both depending on external factors, but one undoubtedly delivers a far superior all round coffee drinking experience.)