A day-ish I’ll (hopefully) never re-live
Solitude, 25 ISO film, and me(mory).
Every image on this roll (and posted in this blog) will have the following be true:
Rollei RPX 25, shot on Canon A-1 in Seoul, South Korea; scanned/developed at Gorae Photo Lab in Seoul, South Korea
The minutiae of my life for the first half of 2025 was so fascinating. Not because I was living large (at least in February), but because of hindsight. I know now that I had borderline crippling ADHD, which manifested in some weird and very ‘main character syndrome’-y behavior. (I don’t need to get into details, but I wasn’t my favorite person for a while.)
At least, though, some of that weirdness manifested in me buying a sentimentally on-brand film stock- Rollei RPX 25.
From the website:
Low-sensitivity black-and-white negative film, especially suitable for taking pictures of detailed subjects. Due to its high resolving power and extremely fine grain, the RPX 25 has practically unlimited magnification capability.
“Practically unlimited magnification capability” is what my soul and my psyche desperately needed at this time in my life- but I had to settle for it as a film stock.
I photographed this bridge a LOT in my year in Seoul. Partly because of the whole “walk to work every day” thing, and partly because it is a well-framed bridge.
This was one of the only days I intentionally gave myself time to frame up an image of it, and partly because of the camera/film stock combination.
That is one of the ‘fun’ parts of having main character syndrome. It means that when something ‘bad’* happens to you, you can take a day off to wander around a large metropolitan city and get the sadness out of your system. And it means you can use the wacky film stock on your 40-year-old film camera to pretend like what you’re doing is art.
*I added an asterisk here because the ‘bad’ thing I’m referring to is getting romantically rejected. It sucked, don’t misunderstand. But compared to the truly cosmically bad things I was actually dealing with at the time (mom’s cancer journey, issues with my job that were entirely self-inflicted, etc.) to claim that this was the straw that required me to take a day off and inconvenience my co-workers at the same time is part of that ‘main character syndrome’ I was suffering. It’s not the first time I’d ever pulled that kind of stunt. But, again, peep the headline.
“Frames that are just a little bit off”
Because this posting format is demanding I title this image.
A lot of the images I’m posting here, and the day I’m talking about, is from when I took said ‘mental health day’ and wandered through Seoul. At the same time I was experiencing what (hopefully) was the absolute apex of my main character syndrome. Trying my best to take interesting pictures while slowly starting to careen toward… a LEGO store.
“I don’t remember what lens I was using but I think it was the 50mm 1.4”
And other titles I have to give images that were taken over a year ago in another country.
Above, I mentioned that the RPX 25 stock is great for “taking pictures of detailed subjects”. So what did I use it on? Street photography that was mostly entirely bereft of human subjects.
This is one of a scant few that has actual people in it.
Shot on the main roadway outside my apartment building, but past where I usually did most of my nighttime/street photography. If you look close you can see a McDonalds arch- I ate there frequently.
As I (also) mentioned earlier—though in a past blog—that’s my biggest issue with street photography. I don’t feel comfortable taking pictures of strangers. ESPECIALLY when it involved another language I didn’t know how to speak any of. So on said journey to the LEGO store, I found myself waiting and looking and trying to find people to pop into this very low-grain high-resolution film stock. I found some, I promise. Just… not many.
Like this!
Narrator: this did not, in fact, count.
But this is how I used to handle sad mental health days. Take a day off, go to the mall, do retail therapy. And while in that mindset I didn’t love interacting with people.
This day, of course, I did, but in a very “I’m going to OVER text the girl who just rejected me because she can still appreciate me being super extra” way.
She did not.
This one may not have any people in it, but at least it’s a more-interesting shot.
Memory is a funny thing.
I don’t need to keep harping on my headspace the day I shot this roll of film, except to say one more thing- I don’t remember the order in which I shot these photos. I do remember that I had this camera with me on the day off I took which was the day after said (very mature and adult) rejection of romantic feelings. But timeline-wise, it gets a little messy. And I’m unsure if the messiness comes in my memory, or in how I scanned these images, or indexing issues between the film lab I dev/scanned them in and my cataloguing inconsistencies.
“Me on the subway.”
I have a lot of pictures like this from the subway.
That photo, above, for example is close to the end of the roll as it exists in my cataloguing. And I’m pretty sure, but not positive (again, memories), that this was taken over the course of this day that I’ve been talking about on this post. This is one of the downsides of both not keeping negatives AND about saving these kinds of rolls for so long after the fact. I remember the broad strokes of the day I had taken off, the roll of film, and what had been going on in my mind. But I simply do NOT remember the finer details.
“A presentation giveth, a presentation taketh”
This photo is in the middle of this roll. If I’d catalogued it correctly, it should either be at the end or the beginning of the roll.
A lot of this blog series, and this post specifically, is about the foundational issues with memory. We remember the big stuff broadly, and rarely remember the little stuff well. There are scant few days that are actually burned into my memory, and they are to a one days I don’t want to remember to begin with.
But days like this where I also happened to document a lot of a bad day on film? I’m okay with remembering the big stuff.
“…mela” - Community 1x09
I definitely took this picture because it reminded me of a deep-cut Community quote.
I do like that I remember the granular details of this strange and (mostly) bad day through.
These last few, though, I do know were taken on that day. I don’t really care that they are in the wrong order on a catalogued roll of film.
Just for fun? I will end this with an image that I know I had taken after said day of sadness was over. (And after I’d bought a very expensive LEGO set, but that’s a story for another blog.)
This was in my ‘okay we’re back to focusing on ourself now’ era. Part of which dictated I must take an artistic photo every single day- a reminder that still exists daily on my phone, even 15 months later.
If memory serves, this was a 10-second exposure metered as well as could have been done, theoretically. The A-1 had an onboard light meter but it was NOT perfect.
We will soon continue stories from my long night of the soul. But for the time being, I’m okay for having a derivation to weird film, a weird day, and the weirdness of trying and failing to remember things.
Wrapping-up thoughts:
This is one of the last rolls of film from my year in Seoul that I explicitly didn’t end up scanning myself. I’ll get more into talking about Gorae Film Lab later, but I’ll just leave it with this- I loved that place. It’s one of the few things I miss about Korea.
I keep winking and nudging at ‘long dark night of the soul’. This is certainly a part of it. I’ll talk about other parts later.
It’s worth re-iterating how interesting retrospection is when I know now that I was borderline suffering from crippling ADHD.
Upcoming arts markets:
if you are reading this before June 7th 2026, come to my booth at the next Tacoma Sunday Market! Sunday, June 7th. I’ll be there selling as Aaron D Leach Photography.
Also the Columbia City Night Market is Saturday, June 20th, from 6-10pm.
And if you’re reading it after June 7th, I’ll certainly be posting about more markets.