long weekends, plastic cameras, and queerness
This weekend was a surprise long one, as President's Day is this Monday. I really needed it, as I wanted to give myself a good few days of true rest and relaxation from being so sick last week. I'm feeling very good now. I mostly just hung around the house, cleaned, and rearranged the living area. It feels much different now, but in a really good way. I was supposed to go to a wedding shower on Saturday, but woke up feeling like I just didn't want to, so I didn't. I felt a little bad playing the "sick card", even though I was mostly feeling better, but I'm glad I didn't go. I've found over the past few months, after being invited to two wedding showers, that they are honestly my least favorite events to be invited to, and its especially bad when you're expected to bring a gift and you don't have too much extra cash to get said gift. I mean, I could've picked something out, but it would have become unnecessary clutter in their life anyways. It's nothing against my friends who were getting married, just the whole idea of the wedding shower.
I was going through the photos I took at the last Anyfolk, and am very happy with them. This is still the beginning of my relationship with my new-to-me Nikon D750, and yet again, I am blown away with this camera. To nerd out a little, I set the ISO to 640, lower than I'd ever consider going for a dimly lit, moody, acoustic brewery show, and was able to shoot at decent shutter speeds and not have to deal with grainy images. The autofocus handles much better in these low light situations than my old D700. I think it was well worth the trade from my old digital cameras, even though I do miss my X100S quite a bit. I can always get another small, compact digital camera in the future, even though I do love that not having one is making me shoot more film again, which is my first true love.
Speaking of first true loves, I recently started shooting more with my old Diana clone, the gold and black "Nightcap" edition, that I got for Christmas from Urban Outfitters in 2008, in high school. It reminded me how much I love this camera, and the dreaminess of the photos it takes. I shared some of them in a previous post here. This was the camera that unleashed my creativity with this medium, and I realized what I didn't ever get into was collecting more Diana clones, despite knowing that each one is capable of producing very unique results due to the poor craftsmanship and shoddiness of the builds. I felt that was a door I wanted to go down, and started digging around and found a really cool Diana wiki listing all of the old iterations of this camera. I found a Reliance model 711 on ebay for $40 and made the seller an offer of $26. They accepted and it is now in the mail! I should be getting it on Wednesday. I always thought I was content with the cameras I had, and didn't understand the whole idea of just buying new cameras all the time. I think I realized that I am content with my real cameras, but that its just fun to collect weird obscure plastic ones that inspire my creativity. So, well I don't think I'll get one every month, I think I will keep my eyes peeled and every so often, let one find me, like with the Reliance.
Lastly, I've been thinking about queerness and what that means in relation to my own life. I was talking with my sibling over the weekend, and they asked me, "Sam, have you ever considered you may be queer?" My immediate answer was yes, I have, and I continue to feel more in common with queer identity and general philosophies than straight identity, but at the same time, I've only ever been attracted to women or people with feminine identities (and I am content in my own gender identity, even if that means I'm cis). I'm not exactly sure what that makes me. I certainly don't feel at home identifying with the typical American white male straight über-masc identity, and to be honest, it kind of makes me sick to see toxically masculine behaviors and roles portrayed in life and media. It makes me realize how fortunate I am that I come from a family where, at least in my nuclear family, we are all open minded and accepting. Am I allowed to even think of myself as queer when to anyone else, at first glance, I am a straight white man? I dunno. If you're reading this and you have any advice, please don't hesitate to reach out via email.