Why I Shoot Film on Summer Vacation (and What I’ve Learned From Mixing Formats)
Discover why I bring film cameras on vacation, the gear and film stocks I pack, and what I’ve learned after two summers of traveling with family and film.
The slower I shoot, the more I remember. Film gives our summers space to breathe.
Why Summer Is Made for Film
Summer, for me, holds a kind of dreamy chaos, sun-drenched, sticky, wild, and a little nostalgic even as it happens. When we pack up for our family trips (road trips, camping weekends, or just a few days at the coast) I always make space in my bag for film.
There’s something about the way film renders the season: light-soaked, imperfect, honest. It doesn’t capture everything, and that’s exactly the point.
Choosing Film on Purpose
Digital photography is efficient. Convenient. Sharp. But when I shoot film, especially while traveling with my family, I slow down. I see things differently. I don’t take the same photo five times; I wait for the photo.
It’s also a boundary. I’m not scrolling through the back of the camera while the kid and dog are sprinting toward the tide. I’m just… watching. Waiting. Remembering.
Film slows me down.
It teaches me to shoot less.
The results feel like memories, not records.
What’s In My Bag
This year I’m keeping it simple:
Nikon N80 – My go-to 35mm camera. Lightweight, reliable autofocus, and perfect for chasing kids and dogs along the beach.
Fujifilm GA645 – A dream for travel. It’s compact for a medium format camera, and the fixed lens rangefinder style works beautifully for scenic landscapes. I don’t bring it everywhere, but when I do, it’s the one I reach for when the light and the view demand something special.
Lenses: Just two: my trusty 50mm f/1.4 and a 24mm f/2.8 for wide, environmental frames.
I carry everything in a Think Tank Retrospective 5, and I use Moment’s film pouches to organize rolls. Last year I brought both a Canon 1N and a Nikon FM2, but I found that the Canon, while excellent, was just too heavy for travel. It’s my main 35mm for client sessions now. As for the FM2, I love it, but with a fast-moving little one and a dog in the frame, autofocus wins. If I still had a slow moving baby I would likely stick with the slowness of the Nikon FM2.
Nikon N80 + 50mm 1.4 + 24mm 2.8, Fujifilm GA645, and used film waiting to be developed from our last vacation.
What I Shoot With (And Why)
My summer film choices are simple, budget-friendly, and beautiful in bright light:
Kodak Gold 200 – Perfect for high sun and warm tones. I love pushing it to 400 for a little extra grit.
Ultramax 400 – A reliable, flexible stock with good latitude and pop.
Ilford HP3 – My favorite black-and-white. I’ll push it all the way to 1600 when I want mood or need extra speed.
I’ve experimented with Fujifilm 200 and 400 but found they didn’t match the tones or contrast I was looking for. The greens never quite landed for me, especially compared to Kodak’s warmth.
This summer, I’m sticking with just two color stocks and one black-and-white. Simple is better when time is short and film is precious.
Lessons From Two Summers
The first summer I brought film along, I didn’t fully commit. I had my digital camera with me at all times and juggling both left me feeling stuck in my photographer brain. I’d swap cameras mid-scene, scroll through previews, and try to make quick choices that pulled me out of the moment.
In the end, I liked my film photos more. They told the real story. My digital files? Still buried on a hard drive.
These days, one of the biggest perks of film is how manageable it makes my personal work. There are fewer files to cull, no RAW files to edit, and when the scans come back, they’re usually 95–100% done. I don’t obsess over color or crop. They’re just… ready. Ready to print, ready to frame, ready to share.
It’s also a relief to leave the tangle of chargers behind. No more worrying about whether everything is fully charged before we head out for the day.
Film doesn’t just change how I shoot. It changes what I bring home—and how much energy I have left to enjoy it.
This Year’s Game Plan
This summer, I’m packing intentionally:
One 35mm camera with two lenses. One medium format camera for scenic shots.
A handful of rolls: two color, one black and white.
Film pouches organized and pre-loaded.
No backup gear “just in case.”
A point-and-shoot for my son, because he wants to remember too. I chose the Kodak Ektar H35 (a half frame point and shoot) for him this year instead of disposable because it actually gives him more frames when I pop in a roll of 36.
The goal isn’t to capture everything. It’s to be in it, and come away with memories I actually want to hold onto—not hundreds of files I’ll never sort through.
Vacation doesn’t need to feel like work. And film helps me draw that line.
Why I Keep Choosing Film
Even with the unpredictability, the delayed gratification, the lab fees, film brings me back to something simple. Something creative. And something grounded in trust; that I don’t need to see the image to know it mattered.
It reminds me that summer is fleeting. That my son won’t always climb into bed with sandy feet. That I won’t always have to pack six kinds of snacks before we leave the driveway. These are the messy, beautiful years. And film sees them the way I do.
Last year one of our family vacations was a camping trip to Cape Disappointment State Park. There’s a long jetty you can walk out onto as the waves break on the rocks around you. My son waited and waited to be sprayed by the perfect wave to hit the rocks. The first photo below is that mist splashing him. I’ll never forget how happy he was when it finally splashed him and how wet his face was after. The second photo, backlit in golden sun, he was still wet as we hiked back to the car.
I don’t need 2,000 photos. I need 20 that make me feel something.
Curious About Film?
If you’ve ever been tempted to shoot film on vacation, I say try it. Just one roll. Just one walk. You don’t need to get it all right, you just need to let go of perfect and let it feel like summer.
New Chapter, New Country
Four-month-old Moby Hjelm helps Beth Trujillo lay out A1 on Friday, Jan. 27, 2017, on his mother's last day the Albuquerque Journal.
This post is a bit overdue I'll admit it. Back in January of this year I had my last day in the newsroom of the Albuquerque Journal. A newsroom that had come to feel like a second home. Journalists, we're funny people. We know our city or our beat all too well, way better than our non-journalist friends. We become a second family when we spend such odd hours with our coworkers, sometimes on last minute road trips, sometimes just filing and editing late into the night racing to the final deadline. We eat (free) pizza on election nights together as the results come in. We celebrate when our coworkers have family milestones: marriages, births, and graduations. And also support each other when harder times hit. I was only supposed to be in Albuquerque for six months. SIX MONTHS. I arrived in the summer of 2007 and almost immediately started counting down. Not that I didn't love it. I did. However, I was in my "intern" part of life and expected to move on to another internship in six months and thus wanted to make the most of my short time there as most interns do. I had a blast. I took every opportunity that came my way. I climbed a crazy peak, flew in a hot air balloon, drove all over the state whenever asked, and tried my hardest to make some cool photos.
I ended up staying nine and half years. The Land of Enchantment really was the Land of Entrapment. I became a staff photographer, then the assistant photo editor, and then the photo editor. A lot changed in that window of time as well. A newspaper that was so focused on the print product, finally started paying attention to the web. (I feel like I can say this as a GenY-er who saw the writing on the wall from the day I walked in the door.) And with the push to web, the photo department had a chance like never before to be seen.
But, I've gotten off track...
About the same time as my maternity leave was starting with my son, my husband was offered a post-doc at the University of Montreal. So it was finally time to say goodbye to my Journal family and start a new chapter in Canada. So on a bittersweet Friday afternoon, I brought my 4-month-old son to work with me and said my goodbyes to the people and building that had welcomed me nine and a half years earlier. It's been a few months now, and I still miss the journalism adrenaline rush, but mostly I miss my co-workers and comrades who made the daily battles worth it.
So, here I am, now in Montreal, missing New Mexico a little, but also enjoying this new wonderful city. If anyone needs a photographer, or a journalist, I'd still very much love to tell your story.
Why I'm a Fujifilm fangirl
Disclaimer: This is a post that is at least a year overdue.
The last camera to have the privilege of me hauling it around everywhere I went was my Canon 5DmkII, with my 50mm attached when I wasn't on assignment. This all changed almost two years ago. My co-worker and staff photojournalist at the Albuquerque Journal Roberto Rosales had purchased the Fuji X-Pro1, I borrowed it and then couldn't get it out of my mind.
It was like the first time I held my medium format Yashica 635 and knew that camera was going to be attached to me for a long time. However, with that love affair I was dealing with film. Which I love. But didn't have the time and energy to keep up with the developing and scanning. I still have undeveloped rolls from it in my desk, more on that another time. But that camera went with me everywhere at the time. I hauled it around on many of my assignments for the paper and snapped one frame every once in a while. It was magical. It made me stop, plan, and focus.
This Fuji was in that playing field. The realm of "magical" cameras. I don't believe a camera can make you a better photographer, oh no, but sometimes when you hold a camera you realize it has the potential to be a bigger part of your life than just a small piece of (often expensive) equipment. I jumped in and bought the Fuji X-E1 with a 35mm lens, right before hitting the road for the summer in 2013. I also packed my Canon 5DmkII, not yet convinced I would be completely devoted to using the Fuji. I used my Canon twice on that road trip. Once for long night exposures and once because I needed a wide angle lens. Other than that, the Canon was buried way in the back of the car under camp equipment and my new Fuji was glued to my hand.
Maybe it was just the thrill of a new camera you say? Almost two years later I've since upgraded to the Fuji X-E2 and added two other Fujifilm x-mount lenses to my bag. It's still glued to my hand. Sure there are some small limitations and I do occasionally still drag out my Canon 5DmkII, but my Fuji is always with me. The color profiles, the size, the un-intruding nature of it, the built-in wifi, and the quality of the images SOOC are all amazing. I could gush more, but there are more technical reviews for that. When I shoot an assignment or an event with both my Fuji X-E2 and my Canon 5DmkII, the Fuji wins every time in my book. The Canon has been retired to the huge camera backpack I leave at home. I only use my Canon for shooting dance events, and even in that case I'm starting to use it less and less and trying to rely solely on the Fuji. The Fuji's auto-focus system has improved leaps and bounds in the past two years, but for fast action it's still not quite perfect. I hear word the Fuji X-T1 can keep up in fast action situations, so I have high hopes for future software and camera upgrades.
Updated 4/15/15 : I realize I completely forgot to mention one of my other top reasons for loving Fujifilm. The amount of firmware updates for the cameras and lens are astonishing. Unlike Canon and Nikon, both which I've shot with extensively, Fuji releases updates more often with great new features and bug fixes. So even if you've had your camera for over a year and they are releasing a new camera with new features, often (not always) those features will be available to your older camera as well through a firmware update!
For last summer's travels I only used my Fuji X-E2 and I couldn't have been happier. I drove out to California with my fiancé and then had many short weekend trips to California to visit him throughout the summer. When traveling so much, the Fuji didn't weigh me down. And I didn't feel limited. By then I had added the 18mm to my bag and could get the wide angle shots that I had wanted my Canon for the year before. Not that I really needed the 18mm by the way, one can always walk backwards to get a wider shot, unless there's a cliff behind you.
The camera doesn't make or break photography for me, as I'm sure another camera will come along and make me just as happy. Practically speaking, it has also helped me eliminate the back pain I was having from carrying my DSLRs everywhere, so there's that too. In the end, a camera is a tool and this tool is a great match for me.
Photos from summer 2014 travels.
Zion National Park
Grand Canyon
Zion National Park Yosemite National Park
Las Vegas
San Francisco
Montano de Oro State Park