Found: Family.

(photo credit: Jenna Kovalsky, USC '13)

Some of my friends have huge extended families: a spiderweb of cousins, aunts in every state and distant second cousins twice-removed who happily reune at the drop of a hat.

Until this weekend, I considered my family wildly different. I've always celebrated Thanksgiving with my sister, my parents and occasionally my dad's mom.  At Christmas, we really go crazy — four Nelsons, an aunt, two uncles, my grandmother and one cousin. I'm not even home for the Fourth of July, Easter or Memorial Day.

But now, I've reconsidered. I walked away from the Delta Omicron Zeta Epsilon class retreat with 18 new family members. 

What happened during the weekend will stay between our class and our membership team, but something I can't even put my finger on, something I can only attempt to put into words, tied us together during an incredibly special getaway. 

As we stood in a parking lot, throwing stuff back into the trunks of our cars, we hugged and said our goodbyes until our next meeting. 

But we didn't make it that long.

Half an hour later, we all pulled off the freeway for an impromptu brunch, which we promised would be "really quick, because we all have so much to do." 

Instead, our meal stretched into two more hours of laughing, talking, passing food, sharing stories, paying for each other's meals, hugging, scolding, telling jokes and relaxing in an atmosphere where everyone is accepted, no matter what.

Doing what a family does.

(And yes, we may have recently written on each other's arms in Sharpie. You can be young once, but immature forever — as long as you have good soap.)

Don't be so negative.

Kkksscchlickkk. Kkschlickk. 

You're probably not currently cradling a Nikon F5 analog, but now you'll never have to: that's the sound my shutter makes. Exactly. 

And trust me – I had plenty of time this weekend in silence to figure out the exact onomatopoeia. 

I spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday afternoon huddled over an enlarger in USC's photo lab, sharpening, exposing and washing, so I could finish my first photo exhibit for class by Monday morning at 9 a.m. 

Something about the darkroom kills social impulses. Maybe it's the orange safelight, which makes everyone look jaundiced and pudgy. Or maybe conversation just dies in the air of intense concentration. 

So as I fished dripping print after print from the tubs in silence, fingers, hair and jeans absorbing the developer's acrid smell, I had plenty of time to think.

I love it.

After a lifetime of shooting disposable and digital, the gritty reality of SLR film photography has captured me: the crisp kkkschlick of the shutter, the smell of the developer and the permanency of the image I create. 

Film can be damaged or ruined, fat thumbprints and dust scamper gleefully across negatives (trust me, I learned that lesson), but the image never truly disappears the way megapixels can. 


Most of my pictures don't turn out the way I want. I can walk away from a shot feeling confident I got it, only to discover days later that it isn't at all what I expected. That's half the fun. 


Shooting with film has made me more deliberate. I can't just glance at my camera, wrinkle my nose and press "Delete." Now, each roll has an exacting process: loading, winding, finding, framing, metering, adjusting, shooting, advancing, bracketing, repeat. The rote repetition is soothing.


And, most importantly — starting my two most difficult class days with three hours of photo calms me, focuses me and wakes me up in time for print and broadcast journalism at noon.


I don't begrudge the Roski School of Fine Arts a cent of my credit card debt (neither does Visa). 


So far, it's been worth every penny.


• • •


I displayed my first prints during class Monday. They certainly have a host of technical issues, but I was very proud of the way my shots turned out.

Once I get them back, I'll scan them and put them up.