A Month In Film (September)

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I’ve become obsessed with film photography, but I become obsessed with things really quickly and tend to forget about them and abandon them equally quickly. I’m hoping doing these monthly posts will help me stick to the habit and continue taking pictures regularly. I enjoy the process and (more importantly) I like that it’s a reason for me to go for a walk. An anxious brain like mine needs to be outside more and a lazy brain like mine needs a reason to go outside. So I’m hoping taking these pictures will be that reason.

Anyway, September was mostly good. I had to take a business trip to Kharkiv, [note]Me. A business trip. LMAO.[/note] and that was exhausting. It basically took me out of commission for the first two weeks of October. But I’ll save that for next month’s post.

I thought that Golden Hour + Cables + Buildings + Sky would look good in a photo, but it’s very average.
These colorful buildings and blue sky look good to me though.
Living that bachelor lifestyle for a while means you get to dedicate a whole half of your bed to storing all the music-making gear you own. Just storing, though. None of it got much use in September.
Sky rats bathing. First picture I took in Kharkiv during my business trip

Kharkiv was a really big surprise for me, by the way. I didn’t expect the city to be as cool as it was.

I live in the capital, and it feels like Kyiv is the amalgamation of all the other cities (except the local government half-asses everything and it ends up being a mess). We’ve got some “business” areas, some “high density of hipsters” areas, some “bad neighborhood” areas, etc. It feels like the kind of city an alien would construct if it had a vague idea of what a city should be and a tight deadline.

When I visit a city like Lviv, it feels cozier and older. But that comes with the drawbacks of bad water pressure and kinda terrible infrastructure (especially in terms of public transportation).

And when I visit a city like Odessa it feels fun and there’s a beach and there’s always parties everywhere and there’s also cats everywhere. But that comes with the drawbacks of “there are always so many people there!”

And then there’s Kharkiv. Kharkiv really surprised me, because it feels like a good, well organized, clean city. That’s very much the opposite of what I expected from a city that’s so close to Russia (geographically and mentally). But let me tell you — it’s great.

The public transport is solid, the parks are gorgeous, and the biggest perk of all — this city is clean AF. Like, I don’t know if it’s because they clean the streets regularly (in a post-USSR “keep everything presentable even though it’s chaos in the background” kind of way), or if it’s in the culture of the people to just not litter, but there’s no trash or cigarette butts or bottles anywhere.

So, it kinda feels like the kind of city an alien would build if it had a very clear and good blueprint, but no understanding of how cities change and work after you add “people” into the equation. Great (and big!) parks, streets that are hella-wide, trashcans available everywhere (to keep the litter off the pavement), and also Sweeter — probably the best chain of coffee places in Ukraine (sadly only available in Kharkiv). 

Here are more Kharkiv pictures:

This is the type of picture that usually gets all the likes on Instagram. Also it’s my favorite picture from the September roll of film.
There’s a cable car that runs all the way across Gorky park. It starts off very close to the ground on one end (like 5 meters, maybe?) but then goes way way up above the trees and gives you a great view of the entire park.
The aforementioned view above the trees.
Same park. Notice the absolute lack of any trash anywhere.
My first encounter with the limitations of a point-and-shoot. This was supposed to be a hilarious picture of a kid riding this thing all alone and looking sad, but I had zero control over the shutter speed.
A mural with one of my favorite childhood movies.  Also the last picture I took in Kharkiv.
There’s nothing I like about this picture, but I had to shoot it to complete my roll before I gave it in for development. Literally on the last day of September (so seems fitting to post it here).