Notes from the darkroom.

#16: on time

Speed is the new norm.

Acceleration is no longer exceptional; it’s exponential. Technology makes it possible, and it settles into daily life.

At some point, though, I made a different choice. I slowed down.
Not as a reaction, not as a rejection of progress. As a way to decide where time belongs.

Because I live slow, returning to film made sense.

Not for the sake of slowness. But because it aligns with how I want to decide. How long I want to stay with things. Where I draw the line before moving on.

Slowness, in that sense, isn’t about patience. It’s about learning to stay with something longer than is comfortable. About resisting premature decisions. About knowing when the moment is right.

Film enforces this mechanically.
Twelve frames on a roll. You can’t comfort yourself with volume.

You make a choice, knowing there’s no undo that will save you from it. And you won’t know whether you were right until much later. After development, where everything still can go wrong.

Photography sits on that fault line.

Years of looking.
Hours of waiting.
Then a fraction of a second. 1/125th, give or take.

The decision sits in the middle, a rupture between before and after.

Writing isn’t so different. Sentences expose weak thinking. Time reveals excess. Cutting becomes a form of clarity. You stay longer. You decide later.

What changes isn’t speed, but what you’re willing to decide without guarantees. Over time, you’ve learned to trust your ways.

The world will keep accelerating. That’s not the question. The question is where you let that decide for you, and where you don’t.

For me, slowing down is what makes the moment count when it arrives.