It certainly has been a break from posting, to say the least! I often step away from photography during the winter time as a way to loosely plan for the coming year.  Shorter days, inclement weather, and limited opportunities to make it outdoors also add to me hibernating along with everything else until the Spring comes. None of this is to say that I’ve stopped taking photographs, but I’ve had to modify what I’m doing to match what I’m able to do physically and mentally right now.

Photography can be an incredibly rewarding but also time-consuming and mentally draining hobby or profession. It’s easy to get caught up in a cycle of always wanting to create new content and constantly pushing yourself to be better. Just before the holidays, my film scanning light broke. I sent it off for repair and waited about a month for everything to get worked out and returned. However, now that I have it back, there are new problems. It’s a problem that is getting fixed, but the stress of it has been hanging over my head the whole time. I have photos I’ve taken and developed that I planned on scanning before the light broke again. Meanwhile, I’ve had negatives sitting in the development tank for weeks with no energy to develop them knowing I can’t scan them.

Like I said, it’s been stressful. That’s not what a hobby should be, in my mind. So I’ve taken a momentary step back from my film photography to pursue another project that I’ve had in my mind for close to two years now with serious consideration as something more than a joke sometime in June or July of last year. Enter, the Gameboy Camera!

The Gameboy Camera was the first camera I owned. When it was released, my Granny took me to Wal-Mart, let me pick out which color I wanted, and gave me a gift that continues to this day. When we got home, one of my best friends just down the road came to see me, saw the Gameboy Camera, and my Granny took him to the store to buy him one too. Sadly, this Gameboy and camera are not either of our original ones. I bought these, along with the coveted Gameboy Printer, just after my schooling in the military when I had a little bit of money to my name for the first time and wanted to repay my family and close friends for everything I couldn’t before.

Circa 2015

That brings us to about a month ago when Jake Pink, aka Hot Pink Bulb, asked when I was ever going to get around to actually following through on my ramblings of wanting to shoot with the Gameboy Camera that caused him to pick one up during the summer last year. He gave me some resources and invited me into the Discord server Gameboy Camera Club ran by the incredibly talented Chris Graves. Now, the Gameboy Camera is a daily carry for me when I’m not headed to work. While the camera was marketed as a toy, it’s a very capable yet deceptively difficult tool to use. I’m sure I’ll get better with it as time goes on, and am certain it will be a companion piece to the work I make with other cameras this year. For now, while the mushrooms wait until the thaw, enjoy these photos from the first weeks of the Gameboy Camera!

Hasta la bye bye!