Before the storm

  • Octavio Di Gianni
A big storm was coming our way, the clouds were circling around us and the sky was getting dark. I called my friend Xenia and grabbed my camera and a black & white film roll I had bought months ago for the cheapest price just to try a black & white film for the first time. Back then, I ended up using a TRI-X 400 instead, and the cheap roll stayed in a drawer waiting for its moment, until then.
This was it. And I had no expectations on it. I just wanted to use it once and for all and hopefully get some pictures. I wasn't even expecting them to be good. I assumed that it, being a cheap roll and after months in a drawer, the film wouldn't perform at its best or pictures perhaps wouldn't even come out.
The results astonished me. I got the pictures I wanted, in almost all the shots. The speed was right, the exposure was appropriate, the composition and balance are right, and pictures are almost all perfectly on focus. I feel like I'm getting closer to mastering my camera and it's a wonderful sensation!