I’m Victoria Scott, staff writer here at Motor1. I thought I’d share a little bit of what I do for fun when I’m not writing stories here. I moved to Seattle in the fall of last year, and since then, I’ve made a habit of taking a loaded film camera with me everywhere I go. Some days, I shoot half a roll; some days, I don’t fire the shutter once.
Chrysler K Car convertible.
No matter how much I shoot on any given day, one thing has ended up a consistent theme in my recent work: Old cars. Seattle is full of interesting scenes with weird old cars in them. The lack of road salt, temperate climate, and general ambivalence towards status-symbol automobiles in the Pacific Northwest means I’ve seen more old cars—not rare ones, not valuable ones, just old and weirdly uncommon—than any other place I’ve lived.
![VW bus](https://motorclubnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/scan161465.jpg)
Volkswagen Bus
I’ve been an avid photographer for 17 years, but I’ve not shot film consistently since before I had a driver’s license. When cheap rolls of Kodak Ultramax disappeared from Wal-Mart aisles and one-hour photo drop offs went extinct, I went digital, as did the rest of the world.
![Film photograph of Corvette](https://motorclubnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/scan161469.jpg)
C4 Corvette and 90s Accord
As my career has progressed, I’ve begun to shoot a lot of digital photography for work. (Pretty much every review you’ve ever read under my byline was shot by yours truly.) I have a backlog of editing that stretches back months, if not years. Film, in contrast, is relaxing—I have to be careful in the field, and “editing” is a simple matter of basic curves adjustments from scans. It takes weeks to shoot a roll, but minutes to go through the images.
This is the complete inverse of my digital workflow, which is a faster barrage of shots with more time behind the computer afterwards. Getting film photos back from the lab (I use Moody’s, based here in Seattle, for my development work) is a treat, rather than chore.
![Film Photograph](https://motorclubnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/scan169882.jpg)
GMC Sonoma
Film, which we naturally interpret as an old medium, has a way of making scenes taken last month look like vignettes from decades ago (with the right car, anyway). Given that I love to shoot scenes focused on anything old and moderately unusual, it feels like this hobby project has become rather cohesive (while still remaining fun for me)!
![Film photograph](https://motorclubnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/16x9-tr.png)
![Film photograph](https://motorclubnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/16x9-tr.png)
![Film photograph](https://motorclubnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/16x9-tr.png)
Hopefully, your weekend is made a little better with this look at how I make my weekends better!
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