Old Love

Why is it that people have a love for something old? Old, as in, retro, vintage, historical. There is just something about these old things that captivate us. Is it because of their historical values? Or is it just that we are looking for something that accompanied us through our childhood? And maybe, it is just a way of reminiscing the past. So does it mean that there is no future? I wouldn’t say that there is no future. But somehow, the past seems a more familiar and comforting period than the unknown “something” that is ahead of us.

For me, I realize that I am losing a lot of my memories of my childhood. My primary school friend tagged me a class photo during our Primary 3 days and I have totally no recollection of which class I was in. I tried hard to remember my primary school days, but my memory is failing me. I can only remember my Primary 1-2 and 5-6 days. Somehow, there seems to be an ‘empty void’ during that missing 2 years. I really wonder where that memory went… I really want to remember how I was when I was just a kid…

For a camera lover like me, I am beginning to love (or getting back the old feeling of loving) film photography and those small, compact cameras. I was a Konica and Pentax film camera fan before the invasion of the digital age. Just a few days ago, I woke up having this “impulsiveness” to sell my DSLR because I find that I enjoy film more than digital. Yes, digital is free and you can shoot all you want. But shooting more doesn’t mean that you are becoming better. The phrase “practise makes perfect” doesn’t seem to apply here, at least for me… Randomly shooting a thousand photos and only selecting a few isn’t going to make me a better photographer. With film, you treasure every shot and you want to make the best out of every shot. No shot is taken to be deleted.

With film, that “nostalgia” feeling of the “unknown” just gets to me. You won’t know what you’re going to get until you develop your films. I like the feeling of buying a CD and anticipating how the CD art will look the moment I opened the casing. It just never fails to give me the excitement. So I guess it is the same for film photography. I won’t know how my shots will turn out until they are developed. So the good old feeling of shooting film still gets to me nowadays.

I just wish I had more time to go out shooting more films. But I am tied down with my Honours project at the moment, so hopefully before I return home for good in December, I can have the time to shoot more Australia since I don’t know when I will be back again. I want to preserve my memories of my time here before 20 years down memory lane, I again have no recollection of this 2 difficult years of my life. So I will leave you to think about your own “old, retro, vintage” times while I head back to the lab to do some work.

Oh yes, about my DSLR… I decided not to sell it. Will keep it for “memory sake” since this is my first DSLR. =)