Los Angeles 2025

Half the Frame, Twice the Story

There’s a quiet pleasure in walking without a plan. No destination, no rush. Just the gentle tug of curiosity leading me through familiar streets. Sometimes I don’t even take a picture. I just notice the way light spills across a wall, how a leaf trembles when a train passes, or how someone pauses at a crosswalk as if listening for something. Photography, for me, isn’t about collecting moments. It’s about meeting them.

Film photography deepened that instinct. I owned a Nikon D50 in college, my first “serious” camera. But it felt too heavy in my hands, too structured. So I stopped shooting for a long, long time. When I came back, I skipped digital altogether and found myself drawn to film through photowalks, through watching others load rolls and wait for results with quiet excitement. It felt like a return to something older in me: a slower way of seeing.

With film, you let go of control. You press the shutter and trust. In an age where everything is instant and polished, that “not knowing” is its own kind of privilege.

That’s part of why I fell for the Pentax 17.

It came to me as a gift from someone very dear. At first, I hesitated. Why spend on a brand-new camera when the used market is full of affordable options? But the moment I held it, light and warm in my palm, I understood. It’s beautifully made. Solid, elegant, intuitive. There’s something reassuring in its simplicity. The camera doesn’t demand attention; it invites you in quietly.

Lately, I’ve been reaching for it every time I travel. I brought it along to Slovenia and Budapest, curious to see how it would interpret unfamiliar light. I shot with Santa Color 100 and Opti Colour 200, and the results stunned me—vibrant yet soft, with tones that feel alive. Some of them even look like paintings. (I’ll be sharing some of those shots in this article, alongside a few from my very first roll with the camera.)

Half-frame photography, as the Pentax 17 offers, has its own quiet rhythm. Each roll gives you twice as many frames—two 17 × 24 mm images on a single 35 mm film. For someone who doesn’t develop or scan their own film (like me, haha), that difference feels like a small miracle. Film has become expensive, and yet here’s a camera that lets you stretch time a little further, take twice as many chances, twice as many small joys.

It’s not about pairing the frames or building diptychs. My lab scans them one by one, so I simply see more. More frames, more fragments of feeling, more surprises. It’s double the fun, double the curiosity, double the stories waiting in that quiet roll.

There’s a quiet genius to that, and I love it.

But beyond practicality, it’s also about attention. When I’m shooting with the Pentax 17, I slow down. I think before I press the shutter, not because I’m cautious, but because the act itself feels sacred. The limited number of frames makes every one matter a little more. And when the roll is done, I wait. I love that waiting. I love the delayed reveal, the surprise of what the lens saw that my eyes didn’t. Sometimes the photo teaches me something about the moment I missed: the bend of a shadow, a softness in someone’s posture, a secret flicker of light.

In that sense, photography has always been my way of remembering. I have a notoriously bad memory; I forget small things easily. What I ate yesterday, the name of a café I loved, the face of a street musician on a Saturday morning. Taking photos helps me hold onto these fleeting details. It’s a visual diary, yes, but also a map of feeling. Looking back at old frames is like opening a window into who I was when I pressed the shutter.

These days, I don’t shoot as often. I’ve been slowing down—not just to save on expenses, but to breathe. I’ve been exploring portrait photography more seriously, which demands a different kind of patience, a different intimacy. My Pentax 17 rests more often now, but whenever I pack for a trip, it finds its way back into my bag. It’s the one camera that always feels like a companion rather than a tool.

I still remember the sound it makes. A soft click, followed by the gentle wind of the lever. That sound feels almost human to me, like an exhale. The minimalist design—few buttons, no distractions—lets me focus on what’s in front of me. It reminds me to pay attention to the clouds, the trees, the shadow, the sky. To be there fully.

I think of all my creative habits—singing, painting with watercolors, writing, tending to over 50 plants in my Berlin apartment (if this even counts as being creative)—and realize they share something: a reverence for quiet growth. For time. For the in-between moments. Film photography fits into that rhythm. It doesn’t rush. It listens.

The Pentax 17 feels built for that listening. Compact, deliberate, timeless. In an era of endless upgrades and instant previews, it stands as an act of resistance. A reminder that mystery is still beautiful, that the unseen still holds meaning.

Maybe that’s what I love most about it. That it asks me not just to capture life, but to notice it. To linger. To see what’s right here before it turns into memory.

And perhaps that’s the quiet secret of this little camera: in giving us half a frame, it somehow gives us more room to breathe.