As I began my vacation, the first in six years, I quickly realized two things: a) I had forgotten what to do away from the drudgery of work, and b) I sorely missed my 35mm camera. The former eventually faded into the ether, but the latter continued to nag me throughout the “extended” weekend. I missed the gratifying complexity of my old 35, when I could delve into each shot and the worlds contained within. Unfortunately, it resides 2,000 miles away, buried beneath a graveyard of books, CDs, and B&W photos from another life. As to why I left it behind, I’ll never know.

I truly miss photographing at night; the simple pleasure of setting up in a graveyard or forgotten alleyway and letting your camera capture the brilliant darkness. With a little dodging and burning, you’d be surprised what you can do with those images. I was lucky at that time, because as a journalism student, I had 24-hour access to my college’s photo lab. During the winter, I never saw the light of day for weeks (descending into the lab during dark of morning, only to emerge out to the dark of evening). Fortunately, there were enough art students down there to keep me relatively sane. An added bonus was that they maintained the same hours and were acclimatized to the prickly stink of fixer, which inundates your very soul in short order.

That’s what I miss the most; the camaraderie of artists, the gathering of kindred souls. They understood you, accepted you. They weren’t offended when asked to assist in your art, no matter how odd the request.

And perhaps that’s what I’m truly longing for when I think back to my old 35mm; that dark sanctuary and all those souls that touched my own. All those frozen moments I’ve lost.