Eugenio Valladares Martinez 5/29/19 Eugenio Valladares Martinez 5/29/19

Roll 1.0 Barnicle City

I’ve already lived some time in Barcelona. It’s my first time ever documenting life on film or at all. I think this is a great way to record memories of my time living here while also practicing my creativity. Mostly serves me good to see how beautiful ordinary life can be.

The Beauty of living in Barcelona, or as I like to call it Barnicle City.

When one does not know where to go in life, I feel like a pretty common answer is to go to Spain first, then answers will be presented to you. I am no exception to this chain of events. I find myself flying in Barcelona, with no friends, nothing to do, just me and the city with a plethora of opportunities.

Never have I ever been keen to pictures, the idea of taking a picture of every instant seem like the value of each moment dilutes and depreciates. However, i believe in making memories and scratching my creatie itch that I get once every few months. Ever since I started clases, I had to walk past this one intage camera store atleast twice a week. It’s called Lomography Embassy Barcelona. At first i’d walk past and just look at the cool looking cameras displayed on the window. Then my curiousity grew bigger and bigger. I sticked around more, and would go inside and check out some of the things they offered. My bored grew just as much in the time being, which led me to start thinking about maybe picking up a camera and messing around with it… so I did. Went in there, asked the guy for a recommendation and walked out with a point and shoot camera.

Minola rival zoom 115ex was from now on my companion and only friend. Like a kid during christmas day, you want to play with your toy as soon as possible. So I put the film in the camera for the first time, pointed, and shot at what I thought was a controersial angle of my kitchen, but I actually think I really love it.

This folder which is purposly named Roll 1.0 will be my entrance to this very interesting world. I knew from the start that this was going to take some type of lurning curve. With a point and shoot you wouldn’t really think so right? wrong. I ended up taking 35 pictures instead of 36, and since i figured the roll was done (and i had read that the roll would retract into it’s original form) I opened the door of the camera to take it out. I was greeded by a not fully retracted roll of film and I was extremely confused. I tried to take the film off my oulling on it and touching it and moing around.. Later, when I took it back to the place where I bought the camera the worker told me that I am an idiot and it is possible that my pictures are ruined becasuse of the amount of light exposure to the film. Either was she’d develop the film and send it to me.

After recieving the film I was happy to see that none but two of my pictures were ruined. and from those two only one is trash. The other kind of came out pretty cool, and at the end of the day I think I like it more this way.

I think the experience I had with this roll is exactly what I needed to fill this void in my stomach. Also, this is so much more effective in creating memories that I’ll actually revisit. I look forward to continuing to shoot my everyday life, future trips, and anything else that I feel like. Receiving these pictures I think has set me to the inevitable path of jumping into the rabbit hole of film photography, and I am excited to document it all on here.