Analog-Ish

August 07, 2026

Let’s be real, life is expensive, and I’m a person with many hobbies. I love a good activity, and activities sometimes need gear. I can’t keep spending money on film… well, not as much as I used to. To be honest, the cost had started to drain the spark of spontaneous shooting out of me. It’s been a struggle to talk myself into always carrying a film camera with me, but I found something that brought the urge to document back to life.

A 20 odd year old DSLR. A Nikon D50, to be precise. Steven bought it for £50 as a surprise birthday present for me, and I absolutely love it.

There’s something about the photos… they’re clearly not shot on 35mm, but you can see that they’re not the same perfection as modern digital cameras. The focusing is softer, the colours aren’t as dramatic, and it’s exactly what I needed.

The camera is so old that it won’t function with anything bigger than a 2GB SD card, but it’s more than enough for the grainy little digital photos it takes. It’s so cheap to buy, that I’m quite happy to have it round my back when I’m out on my bike, stopping now and then to shoot something off the side of the track.

I’ve become trigger happy, and I love it.

I’m still using my film cameras, but more reservedly, and it’s nice to have something that fills the gap and keeps my brain looking for frames in the meantime.

Fresh Eyes

July 06, 2026

You can live in the most beautiful place, the most interesting place, the weirdest place you’ve ever encountered in your life…. but it’ll always eventually become your normal.

Sometimes I catch a look at my camera roll, endless iPhone grabs of my bike, work stuff, my dog asleep, and I realise I’ve completely forgotten to take a good look around me.

That’s when the big camera comes out to play. Freshly loaded with film, I jump in the car (the mamiya is a bit too cumbersome to fly around with me on my bike) and I decide to look at the island with fresh eyes.

Pink Skies

April 18, 2026

The best thing about loading up your camera with a roll of very expired film, particularly a film stock you’ve never used before and don’t even know how it should look in date, is that you have absolutely no idea what you’re going to get.

I found myself with two rolls of Fujichrome sensia, a discontinued slide film, and decided to put them through my little point & shoot camera, and just kept it in my pocket for a few months.

This first roll came on bike rides through the cairngorms, deer spotting behind the caravan, to morning stops at the coffee shop and through highland village wanders, giving each scene a pretty glorious pink toned sky. I like it. Another roll coming soon.