Inside Gigi's World

I can’t remember the exact age when I became infatuated with photography. 

I was young. 

It started before I even understood what photography was. I loved sitting on the couch in my parents’ living room with our (somewhat) small family photo album on my lap. Sometimes my mom would sit with me while I shifted through the pages and other times I would look at it by myself. I loved how the pages felt in between my fingers and the smell that wafted up and into my nose as I flipped through one leaf to the next. Even at that young age I began to long for the moments of yesteryear, I would begin to recognize the feeling of longing, missing someone, and nostalgia from that smell. I also didn’t have the vocabulary for any of those feelings but I was aware enough to understand the comfort I felt when I held that album in my hands. When I looked in that photo album and saw pictures of my brothers, who lived in their respective homes with their own mothers, I missed them so deeply it was enough to break anyone’s heart all the while seeing them in those photos tucked into that album, something tangible that I could hold with my little fingers. I was too young to understand the importance of those memories that were trapped inside the little square photos then but oddly enough, they felt a little bit like home. 

I remember my mother had a little purple 110mm camera that ran on batteries. There was a flash that took up one side of the small, flat camera. When you pressed the black flash button, you could hear the flash charging up, waiting for the red light that signified the flash was ready. Once the little red light lit up, you knew the flash was ready to do your biddings. You would push that flat, round button on the top which would take the shot and then you’d slide the little button underneath the camera to forward the film. The batteries and the film probably cost significantly more than that camera did but I was infatuated with it. Every so often my mom would let me use it to take a photo and I felt like I was making magic. There were not a lot of pictures that were taken because the cost of the film and developing was expensive but I do remember getting excited to see the contents of the photo envelopes when my mom would bring them home. 

Once I got a little bit older, middle-school aged, my mom would let me use that little 110mm camera every so often. I’d take it on adventures to capture the debauchery of my youth and the world around me…twelve year olds smoking cigarettes and using our middle fingers…the stoop that was in front of our apartment. One time I brought it to a youth dance to take pictures of me and my friends dancing. Another time I brought it to my brother’s house for New Year’s Eve and caught everyone’s escapades. 

I don’t remember what happened to that camera. It is as clear as day in memory, that little purple camera. One instant it was there and then the next it was not. I’m sure it got broken or was left somewhere. I am also sure it was probably my fault. Either way, that was the end of that.

This slight hiccup did not diminish my want or ability to snap photos and freeze moments in time. By this point I had started babysitting and acquiring a bit of my own money which afforded me the privilege of buying cardboard disposable cameras. They were expensive—at least for a twelve-year-old part time babysitter—almost ten dollars for one but I didn’t need to buy batteries and the flash was already attached so the trade off seemed fair. I began shooting even more photos; the neighborhood delinquents I called my friends, my brothers, days lounged around the local pond that none of us should have ever swimmed in—even though we did, a lot. I took photos of myself with menthol cigarettes hanging out of my mouth and of my pet hamster. I took pictures of my friends who had cigarettes hanging out of their mouths too.

More times than not, I’d blow through the 27 exposure count in an instant. I would then have to wait to save up money so I could ride my bike back down to the local drugstore where I could have my pictures developed. Developing cost more than the disposable cameras did. Decisions had to start being made: Did I want to shoot more pictures or did I actually want to see what they looked like developed? The process was excruciatingly slow. I was a kid, with no money and a very expensive habit. I would shoot that disposable camera until there was nothing left. I’d hop on my bike and pedal down to the drugstore. I’d fill out the envelope; name, address, phone number, blood type, astrological sign, fingerprints and you’d have to seal it shut with an offering of your blood. It would get sent out on the store’s next scheduled pick up and then you’d have to follow the schedule to figure out when it’d come back to the store…as long as there weren’t any delays which no one ever bothered to call and tell you about. And Heaven help you if you lost your ticket. I’d say a little prayer to whoever was in charge of the safety of my film, hoping I would just get it back and that there would be images not over or underexposed and then I’d leave it up to faith. 

I was hooked. The process cost much more than the dime bags of weed I used to buy. I began to understand why people became hookers. They had a need or a want and they were just too damn broke to get it. I should probably make this clear at this point:I have never been a hooker. 

Then, as technology advanced, as it always does, the local drugstore began offering 1-hour photo printing services. Now, 1-hour printing services had been offered before then but this was a small town, the idea that something like this could exist there…well, in my opinion, it made that town significantly cooler than it had before. The introduction to me of 1-hour printing only fueled the beast within me even more. I babysat as much as I could. I’d beg my parents for money and every so often, there was a little they could spare which helped push my hobby along. 

Shortly afterwards, a Wal-mart superstore was built on the other side of town. They offered a three-pack of disposable cameras for under ten dollars…a three pack! I could get three times more shots for the same price. That magnificent superstore also offered one-hour printing services at a fraction of the price. Every so often my mom would come home with a pack of the cameras for me or she’d drop one of them off and pay for the developing and the stacks of photos and negatives and photo envelopes started piling up all over our tiny apartment. This way of shooting photography carried on for many years. It was pretty toxic but we had a mutual understanding. 

And so I shot, more and more…anything that you could think of; high school parties, more friends with cigarettes, drunken benders, my prom, boyfriends and sleepovers with my friends, nights out on the town. I took pictures of my family and family parties. I took pictures of me and my cousins and when they started having children, I took pictures of them. Everywhere I went I had one of those little disposable cameras in my hand. 

The Christmas I was pregnant with R, my mom and dad—which means my dad paid for it but my mom picked it out— got me my first camera that wasn’t disposable. It was a small Canon, 35mm, point-and-shoot camera that had a flash built into it. I brought that camera with me everywhere. I continued to take photos prolifically. Some of the people in the photo changed while others stayed the same. I took pictures while I sat in my parents’  apartment while I was on bed rest, waiting for my husband to come and pick me up to go home. I took pictures of their cats and the old neighborhood where they still lived but it had begun to change. Where there was once the old gaggle of kids riding their bikes or playing hide and seek were now replaced with crackheads and dope feigns. Cars that were once left unlocked with their windows opened now needed to be locked up with the windows closed tight and still, windows would be broken to have loose change taken out of the consoles of the cars. 

I took pictures of myself, no longer with a cigarette hanging out of  my mouth but now with an ever-growing round belly. I took pictures of the hospital and my delivery and baby feet and fuzzy hair and little fingers and first baths. My photography was starting to evolve and change, it was maturing just like I was. Every roll of 35mm film that I had developed felt just as magical as the first. I took pictures of first birthdays and holidays, Halloween costumes and baby giggles that I can still hear when I look at one of those pictures. 

Eventually technology changed again and I entered the world of digital photography. I began with a little Kodak EasyShare camera, I think the biggest megapixel size was 4MB which was a big deal. I began to slowly move away from film photography. The cost of developing film cost considerably more than having digital prints made. I no longer had to wait for prints, digital was instant. I knew what my photo was going to look like before I even sent it to print—even though it was hard to see on that ultra-tiny one-inch screen. My hobby grew more and more. I’ve had a long standing relationship with digital photography, she has treated me well. Because of digital photography I was able to start exploring with enlargements, photo albums filled up faster and I could take hundreds of pictures at a time which allowed me to experiment with lighting and placement…I was able to become more exploratory which sharpened my eye and helped me hone my skill set even more. As great of a relationship that digital photography and I had, nothing felt as special as those earlier days carrying around that cardboard contraption that captured most of my fleeting youth. 

Over the past couple years, film photography has made a comeback with a force. Thanks to social media outlets like TikTok generating trends, everything that was old becomes new again and shooting 35mm film became the “in” thing to do again. I can’t lie to you, I couldn’t be bothered with picking up a 35mm camera again. But fate intervened as fate tends to do and I had to take an art class for my Associate’s Degree. I am not a sculptor. I am not a painter. I am not a cartoonist nor am I a theater person. I chose to enroll in Introduction to Black and White 35mm Film Photography 104. The class rekindled a great love that I once had and that love blossomed even more. I learned how to develop my own film, seeing that first roll is a feeling I will never forget. I made photos in a darkroom, I learned exposure and mastered light better. I created portfolios and I was featured in the school’s gallery. 

There were a few things I was not ready for when I took this class like how terribly difficult it would be finding a camera that 1) still worked, 2) that I liked and 3) that didn’t cost a fortune. So I made a desperate plea on my social media, praying someone’s grandparents might have a dusty one sitting in a closet somewhere. As it turned out, I had a friend who had her old film camera sitting in her garage and she most generously gifted it to me. Most companies stopped producing film cameras when digital photography gained momentum and took over most of the photography industry and because of the recent boom, film cameras were not easy to find. Another aspect I was not prepared for was just how much the film was going to cost. The last time I bought a roll of 35mm film, it was around $3.00 dollars. The rolls I purchased for school were just under $10.00 dollars and we were required to shoot a lot of film. I was bringing in roughly ten rolls of film at the beginning of the week to develop.​​ I also wasn’t prepared to feel that magical feeling all over again the first time I pulled my film from that film canister. 

I still shoot with my digital cameras but I also shoot with film (again). I belong to a film photography group that I meet with once every other month. I have a small hoard of film stashed in my house (not in the fridge where it is supposed to be though). I talk about ISO and exposure with a new excitement that I haven’t before. Film has helped me make some new friends, some new connections and some pretty bad ass shots. Film is an aesthetic. Film is a mood. FIlm feels familiar, it feels like home. Why do I tell you all of this? Well, because I write almost as much as I shoot but this is something more than that. I have realized just how fast life is moving forward, there is no respite, the speed of how fast it goes by does not slow or take any breaks. 

Shooting for film forces me to slow down. Shooting film forces me to see things that I normally would have been too busy to see before. Life is wonderful and beautiful and messy and heartbreaking all at once, and if you don’t slow down, you’re going to miss it. Here is my bit of advice for you: find what feels magical for you. Seize it, strangle it in your hands so it never slips away. FInd the joy in all of it and don’t ever forget the feeling it makes you feel. Love it. Be grateful for it. 

And when all else fails, just shoot.