As a follow-up of my first post here, I continue to revisit my archives and finding photos I've shot on film for the last 5 years or so.
Back in 2019, I also bought an Olympus OM-1 from James at FStopCameras. Since 2018, I've been shooting Olympus digital cameras, which I think they're amazing devices, and I've always wanted to try their film counterparts and see if my OM-D E-M10 Mk2 (phew, what a name) did a great job at honoring Yoshihisa Maitani, who designed iconic Olympus cameras like the OM and XA series.
So I snatched a OM-1, and the first thing I noticed is how small and light it was. My previous experience with a film SLR was with a Canon F-1, which I bought and 2010 and sold 5 years after. I loved my F-1. I sold it to a great friend who let me use it 2 years after. I fell in love with it again, until I accidentally dropped it and broke its lens. Long story short: $200 for a new 50mm f1.4 lens and realizing she would never let me use it again.
2 years after, I was living in a different country and got bitten by nostalgia, once more. Enter the Olympus OM-1. I still had some expired film with me: 1 Ilford PanF, 1 Kentmere 400, a couple of Velvias (which I still have in my fridge) and yes: 5 rolls of Tri-X. If you remember the last post, I mentioned I had 3 Tri-X left. I lied, because I forgot about this camera and I still want to forget it.
Why? Don't get me wrong: the OM-1 was and is a great camera, a truly revolutionary camera when it was manufactured and sold in the 60s. The thing is: I never got used to the shutter speed dial between the lens and the body, and the dial knobs were too tough for me. I was used to having that dial close to the shutter button on my F-1. Also, the aperture ring was damaged (some apertures weren't working at all), the timer lever was broken, so it was going to be more expensive to get it fixed than getting a new camera. So I sold it and used that money for a digital camera upgrade.
I kept thinking about those Tri-X I had since 2014. You have all these ideas and plans about what to do with your film stock: road trips, family events, portraits, themed projects. But sometimes, the inevitable happens. My daughter had to have a last minute surgery procedure due to a hernia she developed. We spent the next few days planning healthcare/insurance details, daycare for her sister, and making sure she could recover quickly from it. So having a camera around was not a priority, but it was good to have it nevertheless.
She did well, thank goodness.
I love these photos, because they remind me that healthcare is expensive in the US, and that the only constant thing in our lives is change.
