A few weeks ago I ventured off to Santa Barbara, California for my second go at Field Trip. It’s basically a crazy gathering at a glamorous campground for photographers and creatives to gather, learn, dance, eat, and take pictures. Really, it’s like summer camp for adults who generally don’t have a ton of human interaction, and thus it is amazing and overwhelming all bottled into one. I am always surprised by myself because I generally thrive in situations where there are hundreds of people but something about that weekend in California makes me listen to my body, slow down, lay in some grass, unwind and refresh. While I was there, I was able to shoot a little film. Now let me tell you, in the photography industry, film is in. It’s whimsical and serious, people gravitate towards the raw feel of it, everyone tries to emulate the look of it while editing, and it’s just pretty dang cool.
Yesterday I got an email stating that my film scans were done and I was pretty pumped and nervous. You see, I had absolutely no clue what I was doing while I was shooting this stuff. I had to ask for help, I needed a five minute tutorial, I quick downloaded a light metering app on my phone… I was a mess, but somehow, these photos turned out. Last night I went to share on over on Instagram and I started to type up some whimsical caption about how I shot some film and how it’s wonderfully imperfect and blah, blah, blah but I stopped myself before I hit “publish.” Here’s why: we are all so conditioned to say what we think people want to hear. Sometimes we do it intentionally, sometimes we do it without thinking. We are bombarded by so much information that it’s far too easy to just post a little whimsy, hit publish, and watch the “likes” roll in. But here’s the thing: I’m done with that.
I deleted my initial caption and started typing: here’s the truth about this film I shot. The night before this I was up until 4AM. I wore a black romper to a dance party and I drank a few five hour energies. My goal was to stay up until midnight but as soon as I started dancing, the clock was irrelevant. We danced until we were covered in dirt (literally, covered) and then we ate cereal out of the back of a van. We made our way up to our cabin where we found a mouse and called it a night as the clock ticked 4AM. The next morning I remembered that I had go to pick up my Hasselblad film camera if I wanted to fire a few shots and try the whole film game. I stumbled out of bed, threw on a hat and some sunglasses, and tried to look like a serious film shooter (kidding, I tried to look somewhat presentable.)
Being totally honest, I was a tiny bit hungover. I not-so-glamorously maneuvered this thing into shooting 12 frames. Twelve, that was all we got. I was praying that somehow something would turn out in the beautiful mess I was in. Each shot held intention, each shot made me clear the hangover to visualize, each press of the giant shutter reminded me I had one less to shoot, and when these scans came back I was reminded of this: it doesn’t have to be perfect to be good, it doesn’t have to be in focus to be shared, life is messy, it’s imperfect, it’s authentic and real. Be intentional with what and how you share your life, check your motives and keep it real. Authenticity is magnetic, it makes us feel like we aren’t alone, it makes this world feel a little less daunting. The world has too much whimsy as it is, it’s time to push yourself to share your honest to goodness heart and put it out there into the world. It doesn’t have to be perfect to be good.
Special thanks to: Field Trip and Indie Film Lab for making me realize all of this through some blurry film!
I am amazed how you find something profound to say about every experience.