Am I in a Rut?

I've been seeing a certain sameness in many of my photos,

FILMSCAMERAS

sonny rosenberg

4/23/20231 min read

Not to get too philosophical, especially since I'm more than a little sleep deprived and unlikely to make sense anyway, but I've been feeling in a bit of a rut lately with many of my photos. I suppose I have somewhat of my own style to some of my shots, and me being the constantly self questioning person that I am, I have to ask myself "When does a style become a rut, a box that contains our creativity rather than empowers it?" I don't know the answer to that, and in light of my lack of sleep, it may indeed be a question without much substance (it's almost critique time in my classes, can you tell?). Certainly (or so it seems) that a style develops largely driven by one's personal aesthetics, interests, limitations. predilections, etc., so an affinity with a certain style, or styles makes sense. I'm not questioning the validity of style per se.

I'm not even sure I should be complaining about this at all, as I have enough different kinds of cameras and processes to completely switch gears at any given point. Still the idea has been nagging at me. So today when I went for a walk to buy coffee beans (if you're in Reno, I recommend Magpie Coffee on Wells Ave.) I loaded a partial roll of Rollei Retro 80s into my Pentax Spotmatic F that was wearing a Super Takumar MC 28mm f/4 lens and a cheapy No.2 close up lens.

Most of that partial roll came out decently enough to present here. Nothing earth shattering amongst these, but maybe a little different from my usual shots? These were shot at ISO 50 and developed for 5-1/2 minutes in Cinestill Df96 monobath at 72° F.