I’ve been shooting film for about a year now. Along the way, I’ve had a lot of fun, and I’ve learned a lot. The rulebook is very different compared to shooting digital cameras, and I’ll probably write more about this in some other posts.

For today’s posts, I want to share the results I got from shooting a very strange and slow film stock, Film Washi A. It’s described as follows:

Film “A” is a black & white film, used as a leader or protection tail during the reproduction process for movies. It was originally sensitized to record technical data (and subtitles and main titles) and offers a very fine grain and a very high contrast.

I’ll tell you right now that I found myself surprised and delighted by the results.

Whenever I talked to someone, the refrain was the same.

“You’ve got plenty of time. What are you worrying about?”

But I’ve moved apartments enough times. I know that you can never start packing early enough. That it is always, always a long and painful process, and that I will be scrambling to get things done by the deadline…

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Exif Data For The Selected Image
Film Stock	Rollei RPX 100
Camera Make	Minolta
Camera Model	Maxxum 5
ISO	100

…but, besides hauling sofa sections in the back of my station wagon, going to work, and saying goodbye to my old neighborhood, I had a lot of other things going on in August. I was reading, kayaking, celebrating pride, visiting an art installation at the last minute, and yes, travelling out of the country and state.

So, let’s unpack some of it. 😁

When it came to Seattle neighborhoods, there was no question in my mind of which one I wanted to move to. Capitol Hill is well-connected, fun, queer, political, energetic, home to lots of great restaurants and shops and nightlife. And, alas, rapidly becoming increasingly expensive and out of reach for the people who made it cool due to its proximity to Amazon’s South Lake Union headquarters and the Puget Sound’s general influx of affluent tech workers over the last decade.

That second point is part of what led me to my basement apartment, a place that has been a good home to me for the last two years (except for when an electrical outlet caught fire.) But strangely, basement life in light-starved winters turns out to be a bad recipe for happiness. And so, with my lease up at the end of August, it is time for me to move on.

The images in this post were taken throughout the month of August, as I went on long walks across different neighborhood nooks and crannies. These are my last photos of Capitol Hill, as a resident.