06.24.2025

I was a stranger by smog was playing when I started to have the feeling that I was falling in love with life again.

I take care of myself consistently for 3 days and suddenly the lust for life comes seeping back in.

Driving around my neighborhood, it’s all so familiar—trees look just absurd next to our little homes and streets.

I’ve honestly no clue what the song is about; ive only listened to it a handful of times, and mostly for its instrumental. 

But the feelings it evoked resonated.

It took me back to this walk I went on earlier this year. I traced my steps back to when I would walk home from school. It was a walk I hadn’t taken in years.

I felt like a stranger in my own home!

The kind of stranger that has the pleasure of looking at the same, comfortable streets with a certain lens, one that makes everything new again. I was absolutely lucky to go on this little walk of reconciliation.

06.30.2025 RICOH FF-3 AF Super Film Camera

I bought a camera a couple of weeks ago. I was on the fence between a digital or film camera, even potentially a disposable, just for the summertime.

But I figured a 35mm would be just right.

The part that stands out to me about film cameras is that they aren’t just pictures. The creation of phones practically muted the innovation of pictures and normalized the possession of 56,265 items in your camera roll.

With film, you kind of just accept it as it is. No having to go through fifty of the same photo with different lighting situations, or wondering why you posed that way. And somehow it still turns out perfect.

Unless you’re a millionaire, photography can be pretty expensive (camera, film, development), so film is used sparingly.

Phone cameras created such a superficiality in photos. I find that every single time I take a photo on my film camera, it is only once and directly following my very own perfect moment. The absence of a screen prompts me to savor the moment, while I get to be in it.

It teaches patience and presentness.

The photos themselves really are just the bag of chips.