Not unlike the students around him, Michael Duane, the 66-year-old father of a University of Virginia alumna, arrived on Grounds with a backpack, school supplies and a nose for adventure.
He carried a blue pen and a notepad. Every so often, when the moment hit him, he’d stop, pull the Nikon FM2 film camera hanging around his neck to his eye and take a single snap of Thomas Jefferson’s Academical Village and its surrounding area.
All that went into what he captured, from the photo’s subject to the amount of light hitting the lens, was then noted on his pad.
The local community of amateur film photographers includes Belmonte and Sam Jacob, a doctoral candidate in UVA’s English department. (Photo by Clara Castle, University Communications)
“I do this to make sure I know what I shot,” Duane said of his routine. “It came at a teacher’s suggestion 35 years ago.”
Duane, who recently moved to Charlottesville from Pennsylvania, was among a crowd of around 20 amateur photographers who recently gathered at the Pro Camera store on West Main Street. Once assembled, they traveled by foot to UVA for an early evening photo session during a time of peak fall foliage in Charlottesville.
The crew, many of whom were regulars to Pro Camera’s monthly photo walks, had at least one interest in common, aside from an appreciation of autumn’s boldest colors: film photography.
Duane was using his Nikon FM2, purchased in 1989, for the first time since 2008.
Notetaking has long been a part of Michael Duane’s strategy as an amateur film photographer. (Photo by Clara Castle, University Communications)
When he wants a break from his research, Sam Jacob, a 29-year-old doctoral candidate in UVA’s English department, often brings his Contax RTS for strolls on Grounds.
And Joshua Belmonte, a 34-year-old senior software engineer at UVA Health, has become glued to his classic Rolleiflex 2.8.
“It’s a camera from the ’50s,” Jacob said. “It has a twin-lens reflex, so you take pictures out of the bottom while the top lens views the scene. It’s so interesting.”
This range of local amateur film photographers offers a glimpse into an industrywide trend, Pro Camera owner Ryan Jones, a 2019 UVA graduate, said.
“The last few years,” Jones said, “we’ve seen a huge growth in film interest, and it’s come from both the youngsters and older folks. There’s a lot of nostalgia wrapped up in the older generation coming back to it.”
Duane’s film camera predates his marriage to his wife. It was used for decades – particularly to document the upbringing of his twin children, including future Cavalier Marching Band drum major Emma – before being replaced by a small digital camera and, eventually, an iPhone as he found it more difficult to find places that processed film.
With the local camera shop in his new town filling that void, Duane, after Pro Camera tested his Nikon FM2, felt like he had flashed back in time as he snapped his way through Grounds.
“It reminds me of my children when they were babies and the beautiful shots that I got when they would finally stand still,” Duane said. “I would get pictures of my twins at 18 months old and their big, beautiful blue eyes.
University Communications photographer Clara Castle captured her own film images during Pro Camera’s photo walk on Grounds. (Photo by Clara Castle, University Communications)
“It reminds me of how important it is to grab hold of a moment when you have it. With kids, they grow so fast. That’s what the film camera let me do.”
The appeal of film photography to a younger generation, Jones said, is rooted in a desire to slow-play a process that is sped up when using a smartphone.
“Anybody who’s between 18 and 28,” said Jones, who holds a media studies degree from UVA, “all they’ve experienced is immediate gratification in terms of visual media-making. They never, generally speaking, had to wait. Now, it’s like, ‘Cool, I can take a bunch of photos with this thing, and I don’t have to immediately edit and post.’
“I think that’s freeing.”
[♪ Safe and Sound by Capital Cities plays ♪]
I could lift you up
I could show you what you want to see
And take you where you want to be
You could be my luck
[♪ Music ends ♪]
Jacob has gained an appreciation for the patience film photography “forces you into having,” he said. “But it’s also a fun hobby because it extends the amount of fun that you can have. The number of steps that give you pleasure in the hobby is amplified when it’s film versus digital.
“I can go out, load my film, go on a walk, or just go out and shoot for an afternoon to take my mind off things. And I might not know what I got until later, but it was fun to be out and about.”
Belmonte, an avid film photographer of two years, gets an “organic, warm vibe” when he sees the results of his work.
