filmzblog: The Ghost of Filmz Past

(hmm, i wonder what happens if you click on the images?)

Every spring, the University of Texas holds a big campus-wide event called Forty Acres Fest. It's intended to get people from UT and the community together to play games and learn about diversity. Or something. I don't know; I've only been once, and I went to the kids' section. They had a bouncy house. It was awesome.

Funny thing is, until a few days ago, I had completely forgotten that I ever took these pictures.

You see, until recently, I had been "off" film for a few years. The unfortunate truth is that processing film and making prints can take a lot of time. I remember a few times, back in the day, disappearing into the darkroom in the evening and seeing sunlight when I emerged. It was great. But as I've gotten further and further along in grad school, I have fewer opportunities to do such things. So my film negatives have long been relegated to a cardboard box in my closet, where they wait for the day that I have time and energy to deal with them again.

Enter: filmzblog. Last week I opened the box.

There are about 20-25 sheets of negatives. That's about 800 pictures, most of it shot in Austin between 2006 and 2007. There's nothing too extraordinary about the subject matter in these pictures. Mostly, they're just these little moments that popped out as I was walking or biking around town, or doing whatever it was I was doing at the time. There are pictures of rocks and swingsets, pictures of afternoons on the Spiderhouse patio and trips to Barton Springs, pictures of old friends who have since left Austin, pictures of friends' old haircuts that they would rather forget; pictures, pictures, pictures. There are a lots of pictures, and they tell a story. It's a random story about a bunch of random stuff I did a few years ago, and as such is probably not very interesting to anyone other than me. But I'll just say this: they were a good couple of years, 2006 and 2007, and I'm happy to remember them. Especially by way of a giant box of black and white film negatives.

So, score one for filmzblog. Here are some random favorites from my box.

-Austin

(Not-well-advertised filmzblog feature: click on any of the images to bring up a larger, lightbox view.)