Frugal Film Project September 2025 - Randomness

Oct 7

“So much of life, it seems to me, is determined by pure randomness.” - Sidney Poitier

For my September Frugal Film Project images, I basically just carried my trusty Canon QL19 when I could, and shot images of what I saw around me. Locations included some hikes and also an historic airplane fly-in event. So not as much of a theme as pure randomness. Whatever I saw, I shot.

Before I get to the pics, I have a few observations and thoughts about this year’s Frugal Film Project, at least from my perspective. Before the beginning of 2025 I knew that I definitely wanted to continue the project, as 2024’s effort really inspired me to shoot regardless of what else was going on. Last year I shot 35mm black and white, while this year I decided to shoot 35mm color film. At first I thought that was a great decision that gave me more variety, but in reality it created a bit of project paralysis. Color adds a lot of possibilities. And that sometimes has given me some anxiety about trying to decide what the month’s theme may be. Hence this month’s randomness theme. It’s a bit of a cop-out, at least it seems that way to me.

36 shots is A LOT. I was contemplating shooting one of my cheap medium format cameras for the project this year, but made the decision to stick with 35mm. I think medium format would have been the better option. I don’t have statistics to prove it because I am too lazy to do the math, but I feel like I get more keepers as a percentage out of a roll of 120 with 12 shots total, than I do with a roll of 35mm with 36 shots total. Even for last year’s project, near the end I was starting to regret the 36 image commitment, but somehow ignored those thoughts when wrestling with my camera choice for 2025.

I’ve written about this before, but I truly believe that limitations in art often create the best work. While a fixed-lens rangefinder like the Canon QL19 is a limitation, the choice of color 35mm film isn’t enough of a limitation, at least with 36 shots on a roll. For next year’s FFP I will more-than-likely shoot with a medium format camera to keep the limit to 12 shots or less. Color or B&W film is yet to be determined though.

Blah Blah Blah, enough with the talk, let’s see the images. Below are my favorites from the roll. Click on the first image to enlarge and scroll through.