I decided to get back into film photography recently, though I can’t exactly explain why. I have my mother’s old Rebel G, the one she used when I was a kid to take those hundreds and hundreds of pictures of my brother and me.
The batteries were dead when I tried to turn on the camera last week, because unlike DSLRs, film body cameras lack a bright LCD screen to remind you to turn the camera off when you’re done. I honestly couldn’t remember the last time I used it, so it was no surprise the batteries were dead. A few days later, I picked up a six-pack of little silver 123As and popped two into the battery slot.
Turns out, I’d already shot 21 pictures on that roll. There were three frames left—I was stunned, but immediately curious about when exactly I’d loaded the camera last. I fired off the remaining three shots, capturing the not-so-rare scene of Ben eating pancakes for breakfast. I wanted to know how old that roll was.
I unloaded that roll of film and popped in one of the Kodak 200s that had been hanging around in my camera bag for as long as I can remember. I dropped off the film at the camera store and just had to wait to see what was on there.
As soon as I got home, I pulled out my old laptop from 2012—the only computer in the house with a CD drive in it—and popped in the disc.
The pictures were from 2010, some of them over nine years old. The first picture that popped up was from my trip to Germany after my freshman year of college with a super trendy light leak on the left hand side where I had opened up the back hatch to see if there was a roll in there. Whoops. There was another photo from that trip that looked like a misfire, but caught one of my classmates’ face in it.
It was kind of neat seeing a picture of me from that trip. As a photographer, I’m usually not in any images, which is perfectly fine with me. But it really was interesting to see a version of me from nine years ago. I’d forgotten about the Iron Man bracelet, but I had that hoodie for a while.
After that, though, there were a lot of gravestones. The order of the photos was reverse chronological—the first pictures were from July, the rest of the roll was from February. I had gone to Washington DC for a conference shortly after that incredible snowstorm that dumped feet of snow on the city. I had a free day before I had to go back to school, and decided to visit Arlington National Cemetery.
The pictures took me by surprise. If you had asked me if I’d ever been to the National Cemetery, I think I probably would have remembered going, but not much else. Certainly not that I took pictures with the film camera. But after seeing the photos, I remembered doing this now. I remember how cold it was and how I absolutely did not have appropriate footwear for the conditions. My hands were freezing and my feet were soaking wet by the time I was done.
I also remembered how haunting the rows upon rows and fields upon fields of headstones were. The sheer awe and horror of the mass of the dead buried in the cemetery.
Because the weather was so unfavorable, there was almost no one else there. It was so quiet, and the solitude only magnified the reality of the scene.
I remembered the feeling of the inability to know anything about these people other than the little information contained on the grave markers, information which is wholly inadequate to truly sum up a life. The feeling of owing it to these people to remember them, to know them. Some of these people led long lives, presumably with spouses and children. Some lives were ended prematurely.
Coincidentally, I got the pictures back the day after Memorial Day. A day to reflect on the cost of war certainly and maybe, hopefully, remind us of the immense value of individual human life. The waves of headstones, so alike and yet not, are somber representations of that idea.
Photographically, there’s nothing special about them. I took them with an old consumer camera on a consumer film, and they’re likely nearly identical to shots that hundreds of other people have taken over the course of a century. But in another way, they are special.
I’d completely forgotten these pictures existed, and yet, upon seeing them, I remembered everything as if I were right there again. These photos brought back all of the feelings and thoughts of that day, which really illustrated the power of photography in my eyes.
What I love about photography is the ability for images to cause the viewer to feel. I hope to create images that make people feel something. A nostalgia for a moment they weren’t there for, in a place they’ve never been to. Or maybe a photo that dredges up an old memory long forgotten from another time and place. The value of visuals are what they can make you feel, and this lost roll of film reminded me of that.
