I had been wanting to play with film photography for a while, and for my 25th birthday my mom gifted me her Minolta X-700 camera that she had learned to shoot film on back when she was in high school in the 80’s. This is a series of 35mm film photographs shot on my mom’s film that had been left in the camera from her high school days.
Most of the photos are either from inside my Oakland apartment, or around the neighborhood. I wanted part of teaching myself to shoot film to also be documenting COVID-19 and my experience of sheltering-in-place. I’m thankful the photos turned out at all, but especially happy because the images managed to capture my feeling of quarantine pretty well: still, quiet, almost dull, but at the same time dreamlike – similar to the recurring feeling of I can’t believe this is happening that has become all too commonplace for folks.
One thing I’ve learned in the last couple months is that reverting to panic and obsession over things we can’t control is the quickest and easiest way to hurting yourself and your loved ones. Being already socially distanced, it does no good to further isolate by living inside potential futures and possible realities that may or may not come to fruition. All there really is for us to do is our best to contain the spread, stay in touch with the people we care about, and support each other where we can. It can be painful to accept when things feel so out of our control, but it can also be incredibly liberating. Never in history have I seen such a collective mass of people be so forced to live in the present moment. I remember the day the order was placed and having a sinking feeling that a gigantic spinning wheel was slowly coming to a great stop. The ominous feeling followed when I wondered if the wheel would ever be able to start up again, or if it would all come crashing down.
I also wanted to capture the forbidding signage in local business windows and the eeriness of empty streets, both of which served as gentle reminders that there really is no escape “back to normal.”
Above all, I want the photos to be a reminder that in these quiet moments, there is still beauty and we have the choice to focus our attention and energy in seeing and appreciating it in even the smallest activities each day. I want the process of learning film photography to in tandem be a process of teaching myself to see and live more presently.
hannah hansen 