Photo Series: Twenty-Something Women and the Things They Sleep With

I have very few regrets from my college experience, but if I could do one thing over, I would have taken more photography classes. Spanish class was fun, (kind of) but I was never very good or passionate for the language and I developed a habit of sitting next to the loudest (or most gifted) students so that the professor would call on them and I wouldn’t have to stumble through a bunch of botched conjugations. Last fall, I took a black and white film photography class and it was one of my favorite classes… ever. That semester I had just returned from a semester in New York where I became obsessed with Polaroid, took my camera everywhere as my travel companion, and read photography books on the subway ALL the time. (Photography books I bought from the Borders at Columbus Circle! RIP. 🙁 ) Growing as a photographer was, and still is, a huge priority and aspiration of mine.

The photography class I took last fall helped me so much and I cannot emphasize enough the growth and grasp you get working with film. With digital photography you can guess and check your results. It is slow, but you can do it. With film, there is a tangible nature to the whole process and guessing is wasteful. Film involves math, precision, and a feeling of second-nature familiarity for your camera that you usually develop with a trusty car.

The series below was one of my projects for that photography class– the portrait project. All of them were taken in my sorority. I asked my friends if anyone still slept with anything special to them, and these are the things they shared.

One thing I learned about taking portraits when I worked on this project is a bit on how to act behind the camera. People (myself included) are always trying to make faces and put up masks when someone comes at them with a camera. We don’t want to look silly so we make silly faces so that at least if we look silly, it was on purpose. After taking a few warm-up shots, I asked my friends, “Ok, just look at the camera. Try not to think of anything. Just look at me.” Their faces would straighten for a split-second and then *snap. I got it. 🙂

As I said in my post about photography tips for beginners, if you have even the slightest interest in photography and you have an open class slot. Take film photography. Take it so you won’t regret it later. 🙂