I’ve been wanting to do something for a long time now. And when I say a long time, I mean it’s been on my mind for YEARS. I think it’s been ever since I first picked up a camera, over 7 years ago. Something’s been pulling me toward it and, as sad as it is to admit, I’m only just now listening to my heart!

I’m talking about branching into film photography.

And I am SO excited. ­­­­­­­­ ..let me tell you why.

I’ve been getting the Anne Arundel Community College pamphlets in my mailbox since we first moved to Maryland. And every semester I would check the catalog for the photography class schedule. Every time, I would be disappointed to find that the classes offered would just not work for me. Mostly, the classes would be during the day, for two hours, three times a week. I would sit at my desk and calculate what it would cost to pay for not only the class and the materials, but also the cost of a babysitter, as there was no way Adam could be home to watch the kids during their class times. Financially, it just never made sense. So I’d fold my catalog back up, and tuck it away until the next semester began, when I’d do the same thing all over again. I’m not kidding when I say this has been going on for years!! A wish, a dream, a desire. All held hidden behind the excuse of, “Well I can’t because the classes don’t work with my schedule.”

Then I went to New Zealand and met several photographers who shot with film, and as I watched their images roll into my feed, I couldn’t help but get all dreamy again, wanting to just….try it. I chatted with a few of them about their cameras, and put a Nikon film camera on my “bucket list” of things to buy. But still I hesitated.

“I don’t even know what I’m doing! I really should take a class first….”

That is the lie I kept telling myself! I had this idea in my head that the ONLY way I could ever succeed at doing this one thing that I’ve been wanting to do for SO LONG was if I took a class first. I thought there was only one right way of doing it, and if I couldn’t do it that ONE WAY then I wasn’t even allowed to try. I had put a road block up on MY OWN DREAMS! No one else was telling me I couldn’t do it except for myself.

When I finally realized that I was the only one stopping myself from doing this, I got on ebay and bought one of the cheapest film cameras I could find that would work with the lenses I already had, I used my B&H credits towards 10 rolls of different kinds of film, and I started to research learning “how to shoot film.” I was immediately caught up in a joy, a spark of excitement and possibility that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I was taken back to 7 years ago, when I was sitting in the back of an over-heated “Clean Flix” video rental store, rapidly taking notes from my photography idol, Natalie Norton. That was the first class I ever took on using a DSLR. I wrote down every word that woman said, and I would pour over those notes almost continuously. I would spend hours on my laptop, following other photographers, teaching myself how to edit on Photoshop, watching Youtube videos, getting free trial subscriptions to CreativeLive, and basically soaking up anything I could get my hands on. And then, I would get to work. I would ask anyone and everyone I came in contact with if I could take their photos for free, just so I could practice the things I was learning. While I did take that first, 3-week-long class from Natalie, and then again a beginner class at BYUH, a huge portion of my learning how to shoot, pose, edit, and blog for the first 5 years of my business was self-taught. In my desire to take a film class, I had forgotten this. I had forgotten just how capable I was all on my own. And I had allowed that to keep me from a dream.

So now here I am, a film camera in hand and a single roll of film from Wal-Mart (since my order from B&H hasn’t arrived yet), and I’ve got First Love Jitters all over again. I still feel like I have no idea what I’m doing, but now? Now I’m not so scared of failing. Now I don’t care if I “waste” a roll of film. Now I have that same craving for knowledge and trial and error that I did so long ago, sweating in a small room in Laie, Hawaii. Now I’m feeling brave.

It’s already so fun to see my brain working differently with film – to slow down and really concentrate on what kind of image I’m creating. I feel like my senses are on overdrive everytime I pick up that camera – I’m over-analyzing every piece of the “exposure puzzle” again – just like I did when I first started out and those numbers (ISO 200, 400, 640? F stop of 1.4, 2.5, 11? Shuttter speed is actually a fraction, so a higher number means less light?? What? My brain hurts….) were still feeling foreign to me. Now I at least have the background knowledge of those controls, but I feel challenged and awakened.

Now, perhaps this seems like a silly thing to you. Perhaps me telling you that I wasn’t willing to pick up a film camera for so long doesn’t really hold a lot of meaning to you – but this experience has caused me to really stop and ask myself, “What else in my life have I missed out on because I thought there was only one right way of doing things? What other stumbling blocks are in my path because of my own doing?” Or, the ever popular question, “What dreams would I persue if I knew I wouldn’t fail?”

Because I think that this is ultimately what it came down to for me: That if I didn’t take a class from someone who “knew what they were doing” that I would end up failing, and nobody likes thinking that they are going to fail. Once I gave that up – once I said It doesn’t matter – that’s when I was free to take chances, to dream, to try, to be adventurous. To be who I wanted to be! So now, I ask you this, as I’m sure you’ve been asked before but sometimes we all need a reminder, a nudge in the direction of our true dreams and a chance to kick our hesitations to the curb:

What would you do if you knew you wouldn’t fail?
What would you do if fear wasn’t a factor?

Apparently, I’d take a couple photos with film.
I hope you’ll follow me along on my film journey! ­