I've been, for want of a better word, admiring these little square pieces of plastic since I got them back from the lab in Edinburgh a fortnight ago. There's just something about them that makes me want to take them out and look at them.
I love the tangibility of them, and the effort required to look at them properly - I bought an old vintage slide projector on ebay and it arrived today, so I set it up and took digital photos of most of the roll, mostly for posterity, but also I think because it gave me a good excuse to take them out of the box yet again.
The slide is a contradiction in a way, infinitely tangible yet ultimately fleeting; the image, when projected, is full of colour and detail, but untouchable. When the projector's light goes out the image is reduced profoundly, but you're holding this perfectly formed piece of world in your hand, and it begs to be looked at, held up to the nearest light to be squinted and wondered at.
These photos don't do them justice, and there is one more of films' triumphs over digital: you have to be in the same room as the photograph to be able to appreciate it fully, not miles away and staring at a computer screen. In this way the thing seen is more real, and somehow at the same time more magical.
