Surprise and Delight
Film photos from around Tokyo and Nagano that I shot over the last few months. Shot on Kodak Ultramax 400.
Hello again from Japan.
A few weeks ago, I finally had a few rolls of Kodak Ultramax that I shot between January and March developed, and I’ve been enjoying the results that have come home. Obviously, I’m delighted to finally see the fully realized results of scenes I visualized and captured months ago. But it’s actually the photos that I had forgotten about that prove most satisfying to rediscover.
It typically takes me a few photo walks to go through an entire roll of 36 exposures. I suppose it could happen if I were covering an event or shooting a larger or more demanding project. But most of the time, it’s just a few photos here and there. Sometimes, on my way home from work or while I’m running errands throughout the day. Regardless, often many weeks will pass between when I snapped the first frame and the last. So I don’t always recall all the photos I made by the time I bring my film in for development.
The photos above from Nagano are ones I recall quite well. They’re still fresh in my memory from my most recent trip to Hakuba in March. So I knew what was coming. It was the photos from before. The ones captured on a walk around Ikebukuro, and the photos of an afternoon spent at a botanical garden that took place all the way back in January, which surprised me. Those photos, I had forgotten about.
To be clear, I remember the occasions themselves. It’s just that the details have grown hazy, and the specific moments that I framed are no longer at the forefront of my mind, thus I’ve forgotten. So I was thrilled to see the images when I opened the results from the lab. I could feel the memories rush back and reknit themselves in my mind as I saw the photos for the first time.
And that feeling is delightful.
But even when you know what’s coming, there is still a degree of uncertainty—at least when I shoot film. But truthfully, I think that may even be the best part about it all. The anticipation as you wait to see how your film turns out and whether what you visualized fully materializes.
One image in particular comes to mind.
On this hill sits a ruined house that has been in a state of decay for as long as I can remember. There’s nothing unique or special about it, except that it overlooks a road my family used to drive on all the time when I was a young boy growing up in Nagano. I can still recall all the times looking up at it looming over me every time we drove past on our way somewhere, wondering what happened to it and why it was left behind. Over the years since moving away from the area, whenever we would visit, I would occasionally catch a glimpse of it as we drove through town or made our way back home to Chiba.
By chance, we happened to be in the same area once again this past March. After a few days spent in Hakuba, enjoying a quiet weekend and a day on the slopes snowboarding, we decided to drive through our old neighborhood on our way back home and drop by a few places that are sentimental to us. We just so happened to drive along the same road leading to this ruined building that has long piqued my interest, so we decided to drive up and take a closer look.
As far as I can recall, I don’t think I had ever been up close to it before. I had always seen it from the road below. From a distance. So I wasn’t going to go home without taking a photo first.
It just happened to be slightly overcast at the time. The building itself was shrouded in shadow as the clouds above blocked the light from the sun. The surrounding valley had clearer skies, and yet it seemed that the one place I happened to want to capture a photo of was not. But I went for a shot anyway, and just as I pulled my camera up to my eye and began framing the building, a golden ray pierced the skies above and illuminated the abandoned ruins for only a brief moment as I pressed down on the shutter.
I had no clue whether I had gotten the photo in that split second when the light engulfed it. So you can imagine how I felt when I finally saw the developed photo over a month later.
I can’t say I’ve ever felt such unexpected delight in my digital photography before. You can see the images straight away after capturing them, which is valuable and not something I’d ever readily trade away—especially for more serious work. But such moments as I had with these few rolls of film are what I treasure about this medium. And it’s something I hope to experience more of in the years to come.
I hope you can experience such a feeling for yourself.
Author’s Notes
Thanks for reading every letter from Explore & Photograph that I send out.
I know I said this last time as well, but I did not think it would take me as long to publish this piece as it did. Honesty, it’s not even that it was difficult or time-consuming at all. I’ve just had precious little time for writing since April rolled around. Not only is it the beginning of the school year, which is already a hectic time, but I also began a new job working for a school in Tokyo with a much heavier workload than before. So between that and my now significantly longer commutes, I just never seemed to find time to sit down and write. Even when I did have time, I would often be too drained to bother or would be otherwise preoccupied with something else.
Hopefully, as things settle down and the craziness of getting acquainted with a new work environment and the start of a new school year recede, I’ll be able to squeeze in more time for writing and photography. Because it does bring me a lot of satisfaction and fulfillment to share my experiences and photos this way, as opposed to merely posting them on Instagram.
But to further complicate things, my Nikon FM’s shutter jammed recently, and I have yet to get that fixed. Depending on the cost, I’m not even sure it’s worth repairing when compared to the price of just picking up another used one. So I’ve been shopping around for options, but have yet to decide what to do.
I had planned to use my FM and 28 mm AIS lens throughout this month and into the summer, so hopefully I can reach a solution and get back into shooting more film again soon. I’m planning to shoot mostly, if not only, film at any festivals I venture out to this year, and some of them are coming up around the corner.
So we’ll see how things go. But I will be back before long.
Hopefully haha.
