Summer 2022

Edit; this was written a month ago now… Summertime seems to move faster than any other time!

It’s late July and I am spending some time up at a friends cottage. It’s hot and sunny, peak summer time here in this part of the world and I am squeezing in as much summer activity as I can. Swimming, hiking, canoeing, camp fires and of course the precious cottage time that I am enjoying at the moment. I’ve just had a quick dip in the lake to cool down and am sipping on a strong cup of coffee and thinking about photography.

It’s been a while since I have posted anything as I have been busy doing the aforementioned activities. Once summertime hits around here it seems to take on a life of its own and I find some of my hobbies start to take a little slide in the order of importance, a prime example is this here Dusty Negatives project.

I would have launched this site about a year ago. I am sure I can pinpoint a specific date but it doesn’t really matter exactly which day I made that first post. The important thing is it was a turning point for my photography. I retired my old website; onecreativesource.ca which was a holdout from my days doing graphic design. I made a very specific decision to change direction and work on the one thing that was and had been keeping my excited. Film Photography. I had literally dusted off my old Nikon F80, put in some fresh batteries and the thing whirred back to life as if it was waiting for that moment to happen. I loaded up some old expired film that I had sitting around. I put on this super wide angle Tamron lens and started taking photos of whatever was happening. 

Since that moment a lot has happened, I moved, I changed jobs and I started working on this project. Knowing full well that this was and is going to be an ongoing project with no end in site. The idea was simple, shoot a roll of film a week and write about it. I had no idea if it was going to be super technical, or more of a journal style. Was I going to write reviews or how to’s? I really had not thought that part through when I began. I just knew I had to get something started.

As I mentioned before that was about a year ago now. Right in the middle of the summer. Right when I am busy trying to do all the summer things possible while the weather is absolutely perfect. So of course it got off to a slow start and didn’t; really start to come together until September. With a mix of old undeveloped film and shooting film again for the first time in years I definitely had enough material to do my weekly posts. I was working a little less than full time and had lots of time to shoot, process, sort and edit photos. I had time to write about my misadventures in film photography, make social media posts, update my adobe portfolio site and do it all with a smile.

A year later I find myself working full-time again and not having quite as much time to pour into Dusty Negatives. I am still shooting as much as I can, when I can. I have been keeping up sort of on Instagram and that is about it. I do know that when the summer starts to fade I will have a bit more time to sit down and start writing again about film photography. I have been working with a Seagull TLR medium format camera, I have acquired an almost mint Nikon F100 and amassed a collection of other point and shoot, rangefinder and miscellaneous cameras. I have been stocking up on different films and am excited to share some of my work with you.. soon. once i’m done with summer 2022!

Take care and keep shooting film!

Jeremy Shane Reid

If you like what I am doing please consider supporting me over at https://ko-fi.com/dustynegatives