Greetings world, 2021 edition!

I wrote my original Flickr bio in 2010. After 11 years and major changes in both the world, myself, and my photography, it is time for an update.

2010 was a pivotal year for me personally as it marked the first time I planned a vacation trip solely around capturing vanishing roadside America. It was a revelation, spending four too short days in Tucumcari NM, with my only agenda being what I wished to photograph that day. I would get up, check the weather forecast and head for whatever town offered the best shooting conditions. Santa Rosa, Santa Fe, old Route 66, and of course the glittering neon of Tucumcari, all were captured in a string of 12 hour shooting days. It was the start of what was to become normal for me!

In 2010 I was still fascinated with the freedom technology granted photographers. I could not imagine, back then, ever picking up a film camera again.

That changed.

In September 2012 I chanced upon a Lomography clearance at a Dallas Urban Outfitters. $30 later I was the proud owner of a Lomo Diana F+ and six three packs of film. Just to try out roll film, a format I had never used before.

A year later I found myself proud owner of a Polaroid Spectra Onyx and a star crossed Summer Edition Impossible Project “restored” SX70. The Spectra was great, the film was all over the place, and the SX70 was so terminally screwed it earned the nickname summertime sadness. But it got me. Hook line and sinker. There was something magical about capturing images on physical media.

By the time 2014 rolled around I had a collection of film gear ranging from junk shop point and shoot cameras all the way up to my affectionately titled “boat anchor”, the RZ67 Pro-ii. In 2014 it was possible to get a complete RZ67 kit for under $500. Checking the prices of medium format cameras today, I definitely got in right under the wire.

In early 2018 I finally began developing my own film, starting out with a roll of Vision3 500t which had, due to my overzealous thumb on the film advance of my OM1, become separated from its leader in the canister. Basically I had a roll of film in encased in a wad of aluminum foil and figured that would be a good one to start with because I had nothing to lose.

That first roll of film turned out beautifully following the directions of Mike Raso in his screech bird YouTube video.

And that brings us to 2021: freezers full of film. 900 mile road trips planned around the capture of ONE sign. Forests of film hung to dry from clothes hangers in a room blocked off from cat access🐈. And I still shoot digital because dammit there are things it can do that film cannot do. Horses for courses. Nothing tames mid day desert sunlight like color negative film. Nothing can capture the Milky Way in a midnight landscape shot the way modern digital can. So I shoot both. And in fact use the Sony A7Riv as my “film scanner.”

Electrical engineering for a living and photography to actually live. I gave that answer to a curious onlooker back in 2010 as I was setting up for a shot. He had asked me if I was a “professional photographer.” Nope. I am having too much fun to try to make money at it. See ya on the road. And thanks for reading.

Tim Anderson

July 31, 2021