Sometimes I forget
The photo club has been a perfect example of the benefits of putting myself out there, despite all of my constant anxieties about doing exactly that. This time last year, I was still fairly new to Richmond, working a really shitty job, and hardly knew what street the grocery stores were on let alone like-minded people.
Around this time, I had heard of this local film photography club, and to be honest, I don't even know how I discovered it. It was probably instagram, in a suggested profile. Thank you, evil meta beings, for this one thing. You may have taken my attention but you helped to introduce me to some amazing people. The first meeting I attended was a walk through the Fan parks, mostly all the hidden pocket parks. It cemented in my mind that I love this city, if only for an abundance of small green, sunny places to live tucked into back alleys and between buildings. The nerves died away as soon as we started walking, and I went to almost every meeting since then.
A few weeks after that meeting D- hosted a photo book brunch at his place, and I brought a few books and some pastry over to share with most of the same people I had met the previous week. I had this weird feeling that I had known most of them for a long time, despite still being very new. I guess that's what happens when you meet people you click with. A few weeks after that we took the train up to DC, and a few months after that we hosted a group show together, a curation of our favorite photographs.
It is now one year later, and the second photo book brunch happened this morning. I saw mostly familiar faces, and somehow still met new people. There seems to be an abundance of interesting people in this city, and I haven't met a single soul who isn't nice.
I spent the rest of the day at home, intentionally not doing the dishes, and instead scanning some color film I had just developed myself. This was the first time I'd ever developed color myself, and it wasn't that bad! I'm sure its not lab quality, but it looks okay to me. I made a really good dinner, a simple pasta dish with angel hair and a tomato sauce with shrimp sauteed in olive oil, garlic, and not much else. Naturally, I had to put an abundance of chili flakes in it, some capers. Topped with grated asiago cheese. It was delicious, and I ate it while watching Grand Budapest Hotel again, possibly for the first time since I originally saw it. It really is one of my favorite films he's done, and I can't believe it came out in 2014. It feels like it came out in at least 2018, or maybe that 2014 feels like 2018. Time is weird.
After I had finished eating, I sat with my computer and edited the film I had scanned while I was watching the movie, because why not? I'll share a few photos from that roll below.
These were all taken earlier in 2025, probably sometime in the spring. I was using my Minolta X500 and the battery died halfway through the roll, so it sat around for quite sometime until I got a new battery.
This weekend is a three day weekend, which is nice. It'll be nice to have the extra time to relax, and I hope to actually make some progress on sharing some of my favorite older photos from my archives on my website. It seems like every time I sit down at my computer to start going through them, I just get sucked into looking at all of them and don't actually get them rescanned and edited with my new equipment as I intend to. If tomorrow is nice out maybe I'll walk to the park and read, if its not I'll still at least for a walk.