My First Roll of Film -Fuji 200
One sunny weekend, one roll of film, and one step away from the screen.
Part I: The Picnic
There’s a certain kind of light that arrives only on long weekends—the golden, drifting kind that makes you believe the world might just pause for a moment. Memorial Day weekend brought that sort of light to us. The children were free of school, we packed strawberries and sandwiches, and met our friends in a Jersey City park in the Heights that had suddenly turned into a movie set: dappled trees, checkered blankets, laughter echoing off the water. I brought my new film camera—an old Pentax Spotmatic with a 55mm lens that still smells like metal and time.
It was my first roll. Thirty-six frames. No deleting. No previews. Just the soft click, the winding sound, the hope that something honest would come through the glass. It was a kind of liberation. We didn’t shoot for perfection—we shot for memory. My friend Anastasia, swept up in the moment, said she wanted to get a film camera too. There’s a kind of hunger for the real, even among those of us who’ve lived with digital ease for years. I promised her I’d make a list—the best five film point-and-shoots for dreamers like us. (Coming soon.)
And then the roll was done. Thirty-six shots. That was it. I kept the camera in my bag like a secret.
Part II: The Lab
Normally, after a shoot, my hours disappear into a familiar rhythm: downloading, selecting, correcting, editing—days spent next to a glowing laptop, eyes dry, coffee cold. But with film, something shifted. The next morning, instead of opening Lightroom, we left the house.
The kids and I took the train into Manhattan. Chinatown was already wide awake, noisy and alive in that beautiful way it always is—vegetables stacked like sculptures, paper lanterns hanging like punctuation marks over the street. We were going to drop off the film.
I’d read about a small, legendary lab on Elizabeth Street—a place spoken of like a family recipe, passed between those who know. When we found it, a little storefront tucked between dumpling shops and dried herb vendors, the door creaked the way it should, and there behind the counter stood the owner herself. Just as I’d hoped. Just as I’d read.
There was something deeply comforting in handing that first roll to her, the film still warm from the picnic and my fingers. We spoke briefly—nothing elaborate, just a real exchange between two people who care about images and the stories they carry. I don’t even remember her exact words, only the feeling of being understood.
The kids were thrilled to be in Chinatown. Petra stopped at every Labubu display we passed, even though she already had one clutched in her hand. Alex was enchanted by the street vendors at Canal street, standing still as the toy cars whirred and blinked in front of him. There was no rush. No screen waiting for me at home. Just time.
That evening, on the subway ride home, my phone rang. It was from Russia. And just like that, the world changed again. My husband’s brother had passed away—far too young, far too suddenly. As I listened, the train arrived with a gust of wind and roar of brakes, swallowing half the words, splitting the moment in two.
Alex sat beside me, legs swinging off the edge of the seat, unaware. But Petra understood. She stayed quiet, small and sad, resting her head against my arm.
It was a quiet evening after that. No edits, no uploads, no rush. Only mourning. Only thinking.
People ask sometimes, “Is film dead?” But that day, film made me feel alive. It made me move, it made me leave the house, it made me look closely, it brought me to a stranger’s counter and back. And when the call came—when life, real life, arrived like a train you didn’t hear coming—I was already paying attention.
Part III: The Scans
The scans arrived while I was sitting comfortably with a book at the dojo, watching my daughter practice for her demo team. Tomorrow she’ll test, perform, be judged. I watched her from the corner of my eye, her focus so complete it felt like silence.
The film came from the lab as promised—Fuji 200, the most ordinary roll I could find, bought from a local Target, now returned to me in color and grain.
The images looked better than I expected. Not perfect. Not sharp. But touched by air and time.
I looked at them as if they were left behind by someone else—someone gentle, someone in motion, someone I used to be.
Tomorrow I’ll bring the Kodak Ultramax 400, pushed one stop. A different story entirely. Permission slips, careful angles, nothing to share online. My karate photos will remain unwritten, unseen. Not all memories are for display.
