Analogue adventures

I've not gone hipster honest; but the call of analogue, instant film was too strong. I need a way to embrace the random and reduce my tendency to "overthink". This is my answer.

I've had it about a week. I'm only taking a couple of shots a day; just key moments or places that I think will represent the day. I'm just about getting the hang of exposing bang on. It's harder than it looks because lomo really depend on flash to get it right with this camera. I don't like flash, at least not for this type of shot, so I switch it off.

I've been using mono film mostly, which is really good, but I stuck a pack of colour film in today and am actually really smitten by the colour reproduction here. It produces lovely smooth tones in the right light. I've been skeptical of the whole lomo movement to be honest, but this is bringing home to me what digital is still missing.

Toying with the idea of an instant 365 project. It'll be bloody expensive though. It works out at just under £0.80 a shot. =\

The taper was paused for a while. Too many stressful things going on. The exhibition, Lily finishing primary school and the (I'm told) inevitable unnecessary drama that 11-12 year old girls will bring to the table (seriously nearly ruined it for my poor kid), and - fingers crossed - buying our first house. It's only taken us until our mid 40s.

All of that is over now and I'm glad that I tapered, because I wouldn't have been on the ball enough for any of it, but on the flip side it's not what you need when you're actually doing this tapering business. It was almost too much.

Anyway. Despite the fact that I'm still getting increased pain because my body hasn't filled in the gap left by the missing pain control, I've decided to resume the process. I reduced by another 25mg last night, which is 50% at this stage. I'm expecting this one to be a doozy, but I felt I had to do it or I'd be stuck at this dosage and chicken out.

I think it's easy to see the progress from that first #pxctaper post ( click the tag below and then click the image of the hand with the pills). Thinking back to how foggy I was then, and how little I did creatively; it's a no brainer that it was the right thing to do in my instance. The extra pain is well worth it.

From nothing but gaming every day, I've gone to being part ( however small) of the Retina Festival, very nearly pulling the trigger on a MA, very definitely going to start a freelance writing course with the LSJ, and experimenting with instant film.

It's been pretty damn rapid progress. I might not be sounding particularly humble right now, but that's because I need to tell myself this last stretch is worth it. After my next step, which is reducing to 25 mg in the mornings, the only thing I have left is to reduce the dose to zero.

That is going to be very hard and I'm not ashamed to say I'm quite frightened of that bit as it draws nearer. I'm going to need help from my friends and encouragement from you lot. That's for sure.