The Shot that Made Me Fall In Love With Film

One of my favorite photos that I’ve ever taken on film happened long before I knew what I was doing. Like all days in Singapore, it was a hot, humid summer evening and I was was out on the Ulu Pandan Park Connector with sweat trickling down my back and forehead, prepared to shoot my third ever roll of film. I’d loaded it with careful intention into my ancient but trusty Minolta X-700 just a few hours prior, having noticed clear skies towards the west.

I entered the park connector through a narrow pathway adorned by flowering crepe ginger plants and lush shrubbery. Paved walkways hugged the canal on either side, slim strips of asphalt hemmed by leafy green metal railings. Beyond the railings, steep concrete walls dropped more than ten meters into the canal, with a narrow flat strip meeting the water. The concrete was stained with old puddles that caught the last of the sun, and resilient plants sprouted from cracks in the surface. The canal doubled as a storm drain; during heavy rain the water would rise almost to the asphalt walkway. Ahead, the channel followed the slow meandering curve, frozen in time by the concrete, drawing my eye toward a line of terrace houses and the hazy slabs of high-rise flats stacked against the sky.

As I walked, the sky began to do what I’d secretly hoped for when I left the house. The hazy afternoon wisps gave way to textured clouds that undulated across the sky in rippling layers and soft clumps, poised to catch the sun as it dipped low into the horizon. The light started fading from harsh white to gentle warmth, turning the tops of the railings and the puddles in the canal into strips of dull gold. I felt a beginner’s anxiety kicking in. It was the kind of evening photographers wished for every day, but I still didn’t really know what I was doing. I was guessing exposures off the meter and vague instinct, worried that every frame I took might be wasted on something that wouldn’t turn out.

Then I turned a corner and the world shifted. The sun was lined up perfectly with the walkway, pouring straight down the path like it had been waiting for me to arrive. Runners and cyclists drifted through the scene, their bodies reduced to silhouettes cut out of the brilliant shine of golden asphalt. The metal railings caught the light and momentarily forgot their dull green paint, suddenly bright, metallic and alive. Deep shadows fell across the canal, swallowing the lower walls in darkness while the remaining puddles flashed almost white. The water below turned into a long, meandering mirror, its surface broken by tiny ripples that scattered the sunlight into sparks of gold. For a few moments, I felt like the whole scene stood still for me as I carefully framed the shot and pressed the shutter.

I’ve always felt it true that - especially for landscapes - what a photo captures feels diminished in comparison to the experience of seeing it with your own eyes, at least in the absence of heavy editing. But this was the first photo I’d ever taken where I felt that the film had given the scene a quality my eyes couldn’t. I was flipping through the photos like usual, appreciating the grain and the way the light had been rendered, when this frame slid in smoothly from the right, filling my screen and making me actually stop. I feel no shame in admitting that my heart fluttered a little as it came into view; I felt asburdly happy that I’d taken this photo. It was in that moment that I decided I’d be shooting film for as long as technology and my budget would let me.

That was many years ago and I’ve put many rolls through my many film cameras since then. But a small part of me lives inside this photo, and perhaps always will.