Analog: Diana F+

Way, way back in February 2012, by the time I turned 16, a few girl friends of mine gave me the opportunity to turn their present into the best present yet. They had gifted me an experience pack, pretty much a voucher worth an experience by my choice. 

I remember considering surf lessons and pottery workshops but eventually I went for this other thing and maybe because back then I had no problem making decisions, all these years later, I can still state it was the best decision ever. 

So, on a summer day late that year, as I was spending some time in capital city, Lisbon, I signed up for a photography workshop. With analog cameras. I can't say what was cooler, shooting on film, with a camera by my choice, or just going around my fave city by any means of transportation for free - including those hop on hop off buses!

I can still recall some moments vividly. I remember we first had a small theorical session where we would learn the basics of our new cameras for the day - I chose a Diana F+, mainly 'cause they're cute - and then off we went, in and out of buses and trams, from on point to the other, clicking away. 

All Diana's F+ take 120 film and then you chose the format you wanna shoot. According to that you'll get 12 or 16 pics per roll. I was given 3 rolls (!!!), so I got a total of 36 shots (12 shots each roll). I opted for a format that would allow me to get big square frames, but either way, the final result will always be square shots. 

Then you just have to adjust the aperture, shutter speed and ISO according to the lighting and deppending on the subject and you should be fine. As I was not. Hello, pitch black pic in Starbucks, I'm talking to you. 

To make it easier, the Diana F+ as a focus ring with 3 different settings in accordance with how far you are from the subject (1 to 2 meters; 2 to 4 meters; or 4+ meters away). I can say I remember this part very well and I could never tell how far I was from the "thing" or if it was in fact focused, so I most likely shot them all in the same setting: 4m to infinite, which means, landscapes forever. 

The coolest thing I recall from shooting with that camera was that everytime I clicked on the shutter then I had to rotate the forward button too so I could get a new square of film! And this is exactly how you end up overlapping pictures! Whenever my film was coming to an end I tended to do it to make it last a bit longer. 

So this is what I did, and a few months later I got a CD on the mail, such as my used film, and that's how you got to see these beauties!