Film, Nostalgia, and Keeping It Simple

It started in a high school darkroom. Black and white film, chemical trays, and the slow reveal of an image appearing on paper. That feeling never really left me.

At the time I was drawn to New Topographics, a photography movement from the 1970s centred on finding quiet dignity in ordinary, man-made landscapes. Parking lots, suburban streets, industrial edges of towns. Places most people walked past without a second look. What attracted me was the stillness in it. The idea that beauty doesn't announce itself — you have to slow down enough to notice it.

Looking back, it makes sense that I ended up photographing interiors. The instinct is the same. Every space tells you something when you slow down enough to listen, whether the light is already there or you have to create it yourself.

I still carry a film camera when I travel. Nothing complicated, just a simple point and shoot that fits in a jacket pocket. There's something freeing about it. No menus, no second-guessing. You have a finite number of frames and you learn to be patient with them.

Niagara-on-the-Lake is a place I keep returning to with one of my cameras. It has a quietness to it that feels almost out of time. The streets, the light in the late afternoon, the way the town holds itself without trying too hard. It's the kind of place that rewards patience, and film has a way of honouring that.

Digital photography gives you everything. Instant feedback, endless frames, total control. Film gives you less, and somehow that's the point. It strips the process back to what matters: light, instinct, and the decision to press the shutter at the right moment. That simplicity is what I fell in love with in that darkroom, and it's still what I'm chasing today.

/M