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All Alone


Surreal!
 

She must have read about Vivian Maier.

Yesterday, I was with another APUGer on the Portobello Rd. market, normally busy with tourists. We didn't see anyone using a film camera, but the stall that had used film cameras were always busy with American, Japanese and other tourists asking questions. I noticed on one of those stalls a group of American girls very interested in Polaroid cameras.
 

item

changing bag
thermometer
film clip
cloths pin
dev tank
trays
contact print frame

6x9 contacts ok
 
Funny, I overheard this song yesterday on the radio, first time again after many, many years. And thought I should hint at it here...
 
Shooting film does seem to be a life style choice for youths in Asia. Quite a large proportion of users sharing film images online seem to be based in Asia.

One observation I made while on holiday was that most tourists seem to have very expensive pro or prosumer DSLRs. But they mainly use it for typical holiday snaps of people posing in front of various statues, fountains or vistas. For that, a point and shoot at a fraction of the cost would be more than adequate.

Only saw one other film shooter, who incidentally was an Italian tourist.
 
I try and go shooting at least once a week and in ~4 years of shooting film I've seen enough people shooting film to count on one hand. Mind you this is in the Detroit area so I'm not exactly out in the sticks.

Even now it bothers me to some degree. Mostly because at times (when photography isn't going so well), I feel like it's somewhat of a curse to be a creative person in the sense that I NEED to be creative in order to feel functional.
 

That may be true! Just last night I ended up walking behind a young Japanese couple after sourcing some filters at Yodobashi Camera. She had a Rolleiflex TLR hanging off her shoulder and he had a Nikon F (I think) hanging round his neck. That's the first time in a long time that I've seen anyone with a film camera, and in almost every case, the person holding a film camera is Japanese. That being said, most of the (tourists) I see in Kyoto are wielding DSLRs or camera phones (point and shoots are getting rarer I think).