I hope that title doesn't make me sound douchey. Doesn't make me sound like my voice is an octave higher, doesn't make me sound cliched, nouveau riche, or worse, trying to sound nouveau riche. Because, yes, "I found this film in Prague, and you can't get it here," but, well, I'm not any of those things (I hope), and I can't get it here either.
Then again, of course we can get it here, on eBay, for a little less than a fortune, meaning a couple dollars more than you will spend at a local camera store, plus shipping, from out of the country. Probably Japan.
I don't want to get too much into it - But it was our last day on our European vacation we'd talked about planning for over a year but in reality it came to down to the wire. Like, I was booking airbnbs when we were already in Europe, down to the wire. And, well, my lover and I had spent all night in the Rome airport sleeping on rollaway suitcases and trying to drown out the cleaning lady on the zamboni-esque floor cleaner. By the time we got to Prague we were half drunk on travel sweat and the hormones of an unfamiliar place. We couldn't check into the hotel so we dropped most of our stuff off with the desk and put all our valuables in my camera backpack. Hand to God, it weighed over 100 lbs (or whatever that equals out to in the metric system since we were in Europe), and we just kept passing it back and forth, on our way to the only camera store open on a Sunday in Prague.
It turns out it was the only camera store we needed. When describing it to another photographer once home and they said, "Is that the Leica museum camera store?" and holy hell it just might have been.
We were drowning in the possibilities of past and future lenses without past or future monies and we had spent almost every Euro, Krona, and Koruna to our name at this point, and rent was due as soon as we got home. And because my Lover makes me travel with every adapter I have, and we did not yet have a hotel room to put our bags in, I just happened to have my screw mount one handy to put all the radioactive coated USSR lenses on my R5. If this makes me sound like a gear head, I swear I'm not.... I'm just a romantic. I left a pile of drool on all the Eastern Block lens cases and a print of my lips on the FD mount one, too. I took pictures of the lenses I coveted but could not afford. I came home with one. A 130mm Jupiter that makes everything look like the 70s but has a touchy focus distance.
I also bought.... FILM.
5 rolls of 3 film stocks I'd never seen stateside, and I should have bought more.
This is one of those rolls, #santacolor100. I bought 2 and blew one in Prague, on architecture. I couldn't help myself I was so inspired after leaving that store.
When we got the roll developed my Lover, who also took some of these pictures said, "It's like two different rolls of film in one."
And, well, this stupid fucking expensive camera store in Europe made me start to remember how I used to feel about film, and it changed something in me, or made me remember something. So, I guess I started a Blog or whatever. Since I'm not busy enough.
Welcome to my 22 hours in the most beautiful city in the world. Anarchy, ACAB, and all.
Please ignore any typos, mispellings, or whatever. I'm not here to impress you, I'm just trying to keep a record of some memories ---> I don't really give a fuck that I may have sounded out a word and got it wrong.
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