“I have an idea”
Kentmere 400, shot on Canon A-1 in Seoul, South Korea; scanned/developed at Gorae Photo Lab in Seoul, South Korea
My days in Seoul were numbered, and quickly slipping away. As I’ve talked about on here elsewhere, when I know my time is limited in a place, I certainly retreat inside my shell*. Why go out and form new relationships that are just going to end.
But that didn’t mean I was totally bereft of time- quite the opposite. I felt, ironically, that I was returning to a state I’d lived in during both of my years teaching abroad in Kuwait*. That is, spending most nights and weekends doing solo activities.
Kentmere 400, shot on Canon A-1 in Seoul, South Korea; scanned/developed at Gorae Photo Lab in Seoul, South Korea
To add, I still had a number of rolls of film sitting in my fridge. I had a few more things planned (blogs coming soon!), but also wanted to avoid bringing more extra film home than needed. I would bring some home, certainly, but wanted to minimize it.
Kentmere 400, shot on Canon A-1 in Seoul, South Korea; scanned/developed at Gorae Photo Lab in Seoul, South Korea
As I’ve opined about elsewhere far more effectively, part of being a photographer itself is willing to go out and play. It’s about seeing what works, what you like, and trying out new things. And on this balmy May evening, I decided to bust out my last remaining roll of Kentmere 400 and try a technique I hadn’t trusted myself much with since starting this film photography journey.
With the A-1, I normally shot in program mode- trusting the camera’s internal light meter to tell me how and what shutter speed to shoot on. But tonight (that is, in May of 2025), I chose to shoot in manual mode for maybe the 3rd time in said calendar year*. I ‘knew’ (read: had a hunch) that if I shot at 1/60th and then pushed the film in development, I’d be able to get a half-decent glowy effect, as some b/w stocks have brighter whites than others do (especially when you push development time for longer as I did on this roll).
Kentmere 400, shot on Canon A-1 in Seoul, South Korea; scanned/developed at Gorae Photo Lab in Seoul, South Korea
This is one of those “this album made me feel things” albums. The kind of sensation I tell people to hope for when they decide to try out shooting on film.
This is what making art feels like.
You don’t feel like you’re capturing reality, you feel like you’re diluting emotions and using a syringe to drip them onto strips of rock and gelatin. And then when the roll is scanned and comes back to you…
Kentmere 400, shot on Canon A-1 in Seoul, South Korea; scanned/developed at Gorae Photo Lab in Seoul, South Korea
Memory and emotions are funny things. When I saw these scans, I felt myself getting emotional over what I perceived out of them. Looking back on them later, I just see… images. Good ones that are not great, but reminding me of a time that I was able to boldly risk something that had financial heft to it.
Kentmere 400, shot on Canon A-1 in Seoul, South Korea; scanned/developed at Gorae Photo Lab in Seoul, South Korea
Shots like these are born of a miracle
I wrote that as an Instagram caption when I published one of the shots on this roll for a 35anddime post. And while it sounds saccharine in retrospect, it’s also true.
Kentmere 400, shot on Canon A-1 in Seoul, South Korea; scanned/developed at Gorae Photo Lab in Seoul, South Korea
Between the pushed roll of film, the scanning (but NOT tif scanning), the distance, and the time, my memory had conflated these images with the pinnacle of my portfolio. And though they’re not, photography itself (of which this is an extension) represents a pinnacle of the human condition.
Kentmere 400, shot on Canon A-1 in Seoul, South Korea; scanned/developed at Gorae Photo Lab in Seoul, South Korea
To quote Hamilton:
“The fact that you’re alive is a miracle…”.
And the fact that our species and our society had advanced so much so as to allow me to not only make art, but have the freedom (and the desire) to play and mess around and try new things that felt transformative to me when I did them? What’s more miraculous than that?*
Kentmere 400, shot on Canon A-1 in Seoul, South Korea; scanned/developed at Gorae Photo Lab in Seoul, South Korea
“Survival is insufficient.”
Wrapping-up thoughts:
footnote/asterisk 1: I now know/assume/project this to be an ADHD-related thing that I need to deal with more moving forward. The pragmatism may be true, but it is not reflective of the ethos I try to pretend I hodl
footnote/asterisk 2: if you’ve discovered this blog as a result of my social media presence/other methods, does this count as a lore drop?
footnote/asterisk 3: I linked in that asterisk an Instagram post that has as its first slide the next time I felt confident displaying my ‘manual mode’ shots. Suffice to say the next ones go… better.
footnote/asterisk 4: many, many things. (But I like to be hyperbolic.)
If you’re in the PNW, Union Arts Center is doing Macbeth for their Shakespeare in the Park. I cannot wait to see it.
Go Team USA… :(
If you’re reading this before Saturday July 11, come see me at the Tacoma Night Market!
That’s all for this week! By the time my next blog rolls around, I’ll be fighting every impulse in the world to inundate myself with The Odyssey reviews. I will see it as blind as humanly possible. (I also pray that Nolan got Michael Caine to be blind Homer sitting on a rock, somehow.)