Frames of Intention – My First Roll on the Minolta XD-5 #6
I just got my first roll back from the lab.
Shot on Ilford HP5 Plus 400.
Black and white. Grainy. Honest.
And absolutely beautiful.
It’s not my first time shooting film –
but every time, it feels like starting over.
Like learning to see again.
The Minolta XD-5 doesn’t rush you.
It doesn’t do much for you, either.
It simply asks you to be present.
To notice.
To decide.
There’s no autofocus. No preview screen.
You don’t know what you’ve captured –
until days later, when the negatives come back.
And even then, you don’t get perfection.
You get reality. With all its softness and surprises.
This roll reminded me how much I love the process.
The patience. The uncertainty.
And also the joy of seeing something turn out better than expected.
Ilford HP5 has a timeless feel to it –
soft in the highlights, gentle in the grain.
I tweaked the contrast just a little in post.
Not to “fix” it – but to bring it closer to how it felt.
Some frames are imperfect.
One or two, I missed focus.
A couple are underexposed.
But all of them mean something.
Because all of them were made with intention.
And maybe that’s what I love most about film:
It doesn’t care how many likes it’ll get.
It just asks: were you really there?
A companion with character. Heavier than it looks, calm in the hand, and always reminding me to slow down.
