The anticipation...

Do you remember when you would load a film into your camera...and carefully compose each shot, not being able to see what you had captured as the magic was inside the camera?  And when you had finished the roll you would drop it into the photo lab, get your 'pick up time' slip, and have to wait  for them to be developed?  Yes, I said wait. Sometimes if you couldn't bear to wait a day or 2, you'd put them in for urgent processing, coming back in and hour or so.  I can remember those days, they seem so long ago yet it was only a few years back.  I can remember standing at the counter as my packet of photos was located behind the counter, opening the envelope and quickly flicking through with one hand as I got my money out and paid with the other, barely able to contain my excitement if I had shots I loved, (or my disappointment if they didn't turn out as I'd hoped), smiling and saying thanks, then slowly walking out of the lab while going through the envelope again, and savouring each photo, taking in all of the details....putting the shots I liked up on my wall when I got home, and the ones I didn't like stayed in the envelope and put into a box, to be looked at again in later years. 

Isn't it funny how today it seems everything is instant - use a digital photo and you can see the shot on the back - like it and keep it, don't like, delete.  Even my beloved Polaroid is instant.  And while I wouldn't be where I am today without digital and polaroid photography, to be honest, I miss the anticipation of film - the build up to that moment when my packet was handed over the counter and I could not wait to open it.  It is an exhilarating feeling.

Yesterday Shannon fixed my Diana Mini, and I was so excited that instead of having an hour of me time while they did some errands in the city, I loaded a roll of black and white film and went with them, taking photos of the city from the car window as we drove around.  And oh what a feeling!  Click and wind - it is a magic sound!  And all I could think about last night was taking them to my lab to put them in for developing this morning, but Otis fell asleep and Annabel is at Kinder, so it won't be until tomorrow that I can put them in...and I am enjoying the anticipation.  And I am going to enjoy it all day, and all night....