Late 2016 I met up with a friend in Exeter. He handed me a Praktica MTL3 with a "right, so, this is yours now." Lush. We drifted around town with him deciphering ISOs, hyper-focal distancing and me occasionally snapping old buildings, new buildings and charred buildings (the Royal Clarence Hotel on the city's cathedral green had recently burnt down due to a nearby late night gallery fire and old wooden connecting beams). 31 shots into a roll of 24 we realise the film hasn't wound on. I figured it's okay, it kinda felt like when you and a mate are playing with new characters in Tekken or Super Smash Bros- there's always that initial 'hold on, let's just practice a sec and figure out all the moves'. Inevitably, when it came to the actual fighting, you and your friend are going to inanely button-mash regardless. That, however, would be expensive in regards to film photography, so instead, now that I had the 'moves' down, I could shoot the roll for real.
From the Haldon forest, to Dawlish Warren's beach, to the bottle bank in Kenton it was quite clear, on developing the film, that the Praktica had a bit of a light leak. As pretty as it was, it wasn't ideal- occasionally flash-banging the left side of the image so intensely that landscapes and a dog's nose went missing.
Despite the crash course in technical issues(/my introduction to shooting film), I was hooked on the process. Seeing, stopping, slowly, meticulously picking apertures and shutter speeds, framing, picking settings again, looking at it from another angle, picking settings again, preferring the original way I had it composed, pick the se-... meditative and immensely satisfying, especially since the MTL3 had such a heavy Russian *CLUNK* to its shutter.
I looked forward to the rolls ahead.