A roll, a card, and the same walk
Trying to settle an old argument by carrying two cameras. It didn’t help.
I took the film camera to Long Pasture on Tuesday, then put the digital one in the bag as well. This rather undermined the idea of travelling light. I wanted to see whether I would look differently with only a few frames left, though I suspect I mostly wanted an excuse to use the older camera.
The field had been cut since my last visit. Along the wall there was a thin border of standing grass, dry enough to make a papery sound when the wind passed through. I made a digital picture first, checked it, moved half a pace to the left, and made another. Then I lifted the film camera and spent a surprisingly long time deciding whether the same view deserved one of the remaining frames.
It is tempting to call that care. Sometimes it is only hesitation. I have plenty of carefully considered pictures on film that are not much good, and a few hurried digital ones I would be sorry to lose. The difference on this walk was mostly in what happened after pressing the button. With one camera I immediately looked down. With the other I kept looking at the field.
I have not had the roll developed yet, so this is not a comparison of results. The picture here is from the digital camera. The colour is close to what I remember, though the grass was perhaps less golden and my memory has probably been helped along by the warm kitchen light.
Next time I will take just one camera. I wrote that in the notebook, then spent the evening trying to decide which one. The grass, meanwhile, is getting on perfectly well without a position on the matter.