5 frames with an Olympus AF-1 & Revolog Snovlox – By Allysse Riordan

At Christmas I received a new camera, the Olympus AF-1. When I first saw it, I loved the simplicity of it, but before loading film in it I turned to Google. After all, I knew nothing about the camera, had never even heard of it before. I quickly found out that apart from a focus button, it does pretty much all of the jobs for me (shutter speed, flash, autofocus if I can’t be bothered with the button), and it’s weatherproof. As someone who spends a lot of time outdoors, this is the perfect feature.

As it was Christmas, I decided to load the camera with a roll of Revolog Snovlox, a black and white film with white dots peppered all over. Snovlox is a special edition film from Revolog, an Austrian film company that creates film with special effects.

Snovlox, to me, is perfect Christmas film. It’s black and white and full of nostalgia. And the white dots of different shapes and sizes that appear all over your photographs make it look like snowflakes falling on your shots.

I knew it wasn’t going to snow, it never does at Christmas where my family lives, so I thought I’d add my own with this film. I brought the camera everywhere I went with my family, recording memories of outings and walks around the countryside to pretend to some sort of exercise between meals.

Being used to my SLR and medium format cameras, I kept having to remind myself that the viewfinder is not accurate. I couldn’t rely on it for perfect composition, but then, I never really had time for that. My niece and nephew move too fast. So I let go of composition and simply pointed in the right direction before pressing the one big button at the top.

When I finally received the developed roll from my local lab, I was impressed. Not much of the shots had been thought through, but all of them were filled with memories. I didn’t truly have expectations for the camera, but now I know it will always be in my pocket wherever I go, ready to be quickly aimed at a subject in seconds and fired at the press of one button.

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