A Year On Film
a bold creative experiment for 2024
Well where do we start here but with the story?
Which story
And which one first?
I have come to know the way I experience life is through stories and it bores some to tears and touches the depths of others but I don’t know how else to do this thing called life.
Last week my dear friend came over for a cuppa. As she admired the mug I couldn’t help but tell her of the sister of my heart who gifted me that for my thirtieth birthday with the words on the card, “let’s grow old together” that moved me deep…
Because what if she said she liked the mug because she needed to receive that thread of sisterhood, the ripple of those words, in that moment?
It’s like I feel this overwhelming urge to share stories and sentiments; and if this is not you, make a mental note that when you come for a cuppa not to ask me where I got something/anything in my house because otherwise you will be taken down a rabbit hole of twists and turns, although it would all make complete sense to you my reader because you find yourself willingly engaging in this rabbit hole of unedited unfiltered magical mess that is my heart/substack.
When I think about the first thread of my calling for “A Year On Film” in 2024, it of course must be the photo albums that surrounded my home growing up that have an indescribable feeling alongside them…
My Mum & Dad on film, one of my favourite photos of them.
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I have loved working with film over the past few years in the capacity of my dear friend and honorary regular photographer of my creative visions the one and only Bri Horne, taking the most splendid photographs on her film camera for me, largely in the capacity of capturing a vision I have for certain offerings…I have loved that experience.
It’s the texture for me. Photography: Bri Horne
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And then last year getting the opportunity to shoot a video on Super 8 and having the joy and pleasure of learning that on the job, on the go and being able to create The Sovereign Creative film which felt like such a deep authentic representation of the vision and feeling I wanted to portray…in its essence the feeling of driving my car when I am feeling creative, how wild and true and joyful and outrageous and alive I feel, and inviting my community into that energy, into that feeling, via The Sovereign Creative.
On set for The Sovereign Creative, one take only take with Director Curtis Hill.
Photography: Bri Horne
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One step back (I do this in real life too, tell the details out of order, may you find it endearing because I get caught up in emotion and not too frustrating hahaha!)
My brother in law, Matt’s brother Ben, has been taking amazing photos on film camera over the last few years. I said in passing to him months prior that I was considering maybe buying my own film camera down the track but even saying it I had such a nervousness or sense that it was ‘out of my league’, I never saw myself in the photographer category eh.
Well Ben rocks up to my thirtieth and casually hands me a disposable film camera & a few rolls of film and I was so incredibly moved…my smile a mile wide, especially when he loaded it up and said, “let’s get a roll of the party hey”.
Ben & I, just after he gifted me my first film camera, my 30th birthday party, March 2023.
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Well that roll of film will always hold a special place in my heart. When I got it developed and it sat in a file on my computer it was the greatest joy to receive, to find photos I did and didn’t know about, to find feelings that were beyond what an iphone could capture, to discover that the atmosphere of the night was captured in rays of light, in fingers over the lens and even some of recovery the next day.
Minutes before, “Amanda Kate Hill, will you marry me”
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I found myself completely charmed by the experience and my nostalgic heart sang, given in the months to come and still now, I find myself putting on the playlist from the night, opening the digital file aka. “Portal” and absorbing the night in a way I am convinced is completely different to the photos one would take on their phone.
Mandy’s 30th recovery, March 2023.
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The next roll Ben gave me happened to be black & white and coincided with our family spending 10 nights in Port Melbourne during last Autumn in an old miner’s cottage. Another portal of time very close to my heart, unexplainable in words and yet felt through these images I took. Within that roll exists my favourite film photo from 2023:
Two under 3, Port Melbourne, May 2023.
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I would go on to take 11 rolls of film last year, 10 of which ‘turned out’, RIP to the roll of film from our Easter camping off the grid with the best people we know which would’ve been absolute gold that saw the light of day and was a write off which saw me basically in tears in CBD of Melbs!!!!
“That’s film baby.”
Is all I could think!
Which is hilarious in itself because I really know nothing about ‘film’. I’ve never done a course, I don’t know anything about photography but that’s fun too.