There’s plenty of routine and repetition in photography. The sequences we all run through; film shooters – loading the roll, the cocking of the wind on lever. Digital photographer – setting our menu layouts to ease lessen the creative load on our minds, selecting one of a dozen or more modes to shoot in, through …
Stranger Rolls – Creative Chaos to Break the Routine – By Wes Hall Read More
Living in a small town in the countryside has its pros and cons. One of the pros (or cons) being that if you work in an area outside of the ordinary, most people know about it. This happened to me, living in a very small town in southern Denmark, working as a teacher at a cultural boarding school. For those that don’t know, this is a folk high school – I’m not sure how to explain it, but it’s a place where mostly young adults come to stay for 4-5 months, studying subjects out of interest and passion, without any kind of graduation. I primarily teach music, but also darkroom courses and taking photo assignments, mostly portrait work, band photos and album covers. All purely analog.
On November 7, 1964 Conxita and Josep got married. You will see that, according to the typical professional studio photo of that time, they made a good couple and, of course, they continue to do so.
At that time I did not know them. It was in 1973 when I started working as an Engineer in the company where Josep had been Head of Workshop for years. We shared the stage for more than 25 years and except for minor work discrepancies, the relationship was good. Sometimes we told each other family anecdotes and this is how I learned about his wife Conxita, his son Albert, his parents and their hometown of Artesa de Segre (Lleida) – a place I had visited on several occasions.
After a year and a half back into film photography, I figured the day would come when I buy a camera with a roll of film in it. This day came in June, when I bought a Minolta Freedom Zoom 160 Date (also known as Riva Zoom 160) off of eBay. When I received it, I noticed the green of Fuji C200 in the little window on the back. The roll was about half exposed. I rewound it, and after determining that yes, the camera does work, I sent off the roll to be developed and waited in anticipation. The Freedom Zoom 160 was released around 2002, so the film could very well be nearing twenty years old. Will there be anything on it? And what will these images hold?
I retired in 2012 and decided to turn up the wick on my lifelong interest in film photography. I wanted something to do in the indoor winter months and started to scan my archive of slides. My first efforts were simply to safeguard slides that were starting to deteriorate but then I started to process some prints and negatives as well.
