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25 Images to finish 2003 (and start off 2004)

Nagasaki, September 2003: click to enter gallery

I’m not going to go into it much here and now, but 2003 was sort of a breakthrough year for me photographically. I rediscovered my film cameras (and bought some new ones), re-connected with film and black and white specifically, shot more film than perhaps the last 10 years put together, and in general feel very good about the place I’m at right now, though I still have many miles to go before I sleep.

To look back as folks are wont to do at this time of year, I’ve put together a small gallery of 25 images, all shot on black and white film, all shot within the last 4 months, and all previously unpublished online, with a couple of exceptions. Not a “best of” or highlights reel, just 25 new images to close out last year and serve as a stepping off point for 2004.

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A stocking full of 30-yen film

Konica Centuria film

It being Christmas and all, here’s a shoping-related post for the “Japan doesn’t have to be all that expensive” file. Yesterday I bought 39 rolls of the above-pictured Konica Centuria Super color negative film, all of them 36-exposure rolls, and all of them in-date, some not expiring until as far off as 05/2005. The outlay? ¥30 each, or ¥1170 total (at today’s exchange rate, that works out to $10.91, or $.28 cents/roll).

Just to crunch the numbers some more, for kicks let’s look at how much money I potentially saved with this purchase. I bought 36 rolls of 200 ASA film; 1 roll of 400 ASA film; and 2 rolls of 800 ASA film. Altogether, this film would have cost ¥19,560 at Bic Camera, one of the big camera/electronics superstores in Japan. So I saved a theoretical ¥18,390, or $171. Or looked at another way, the 2 rolls of 800 ASA film would have cost ¥190 more than all 39 rolls did. Granted this is all fanciful digit-pushing on my part, as it’s extremely unlikely I would ever buy 39 rolls of consumer-grade color negative at one time (in case you haven’t noticed, color is not run through my cameras that often these days), and even if I did it’s unlikely it would be this Konica stuff. But who’s to complain? I basically have my oyabaka Kaika film needs met well into 2004, and who knows, I might actually find uses for the stuff past baby pictures.

So where exactly did I buy this film? Heh, I’ll tell you after I go back there tomorrow to buy the remaining rolls I was dumb enough not to buy yesterday.