croasan

  • Back to film

    After years of digital convenience, I’ve finally caved: I’m going back to film.
    I wanted to share the little research journey that led me to this compact setup, and why film still has a place in my life.

    Photography has always been a quiet passion of mine. I’ve never tried to monetize it or turn it into content. It’s just something I do for myself, a way to document life beyond the endless scroll of the iPhone camera roll.

    Even when shooting digital, I’m not the kind of person who takes 200 versions of the same shot. I like photography to be calm, deliberate, even meditative. So honestly, switching back to film doesn’t feel like some dramatic departure. If anything, it feels like coming home.

    Why Film, Again?

    There’s something grounding about film.
    I love the physicality of it, the weight of the camera, the click of the shutter, the rituals around loading film, developing it, waiting. There’s a mysticism to the process. Sometimes the final image almost feels like a bonus, not the goal.

    It’s a healing hobby for me. A way to slow down, look closer, and be present.

    I already had a few film cameras lying around, but none that were actually usable. More like decorative paperweights with emotional value.

    So I dove into the point & shoot rabbit hole: Contax T2, Yashica T4, Nikon 35Ti… all beautiful, all tempting, until you remember that most of them rely heavily on aging electronics. And when those go, they’re gone for good.

    I even considered going full rangefinder, or something wild like the Fujifilm GA645Zi medium format. But same problem: gorgeous gear, fragile guts, and painful price tags.

    That’s when I found the Contax 139Q.
    Yeah, it’s still electronic. Yeah, it could die someday. But it’s affordable, well-built, and if it fails, I won’t be emotionally or financially wrecked.

    It’s small for an SLR, almost pocketable, especially with the 45mm Zeiss pancake lens. The viewfinder is bright and displays your aperture inside, which I love. The camera takes C/Y mount Zeiss glass, so there’s no compromise in image quality. Aperture priority mode gives it that point-and-shoot ease, and the shutter sound is incredibly satisfying.

    I’m not shooting street or fast-paced stuff, so a compact, affordable SLR like this made way more sense than chasing fragile hype cameras.

    The SLR shape can be confusing without context, but this Contax is really small.

    One day I’d love to set up a home lab for developing and scanning. Just the idea of shooting, processing, and bringing it all to life in one space feels like a dream. No room for that now, but it’s on the wishlist. One step at a time.

    I’ll be back soon with my first developed rolls.

    —

    by

    croa_san
    in

  • Animation Reel 2024

    New year, new Reel! At least that’s what I set myself since I started working as a character animator about 10 years ago (?!).

    The first time I published an animation reel was on a date close to my birthday, so I thought it was a good excuse to self-impose a tradition and always update it on the same day of the year.

    I also consider it a self gift since putting together all the work I do (professional, but mostly personal) somehow makes me aware of how much I am growing as an artist.

    Lately the pace of personal projects has slowed down significantly (as much as work responsibilities have increased), however I’m glad to always have something new to add to my portfolio every year.

    This occasion is special because I am including what for me has been a milestone in my career: the trailer of Kemuri on The Game Awards. It is important to me because this is the first project in which I am Animation Director, and to present it to the world I was also given the opportunity to direct and animate this piece.

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    by

    croa_san
    in

  • Mori Tower

    Due to my work I’ve traveled a few times to Tokyo recently. I had never been to Japan before and it is a wonderful opportunity for which I feel enormously fortunate.

    I’ve recently read that the Tokyo Sky Deck has closed permanently in 2024. Very sad news because even though I have visited amazing locations in Japan this one felt especially symbolic. That is why I would like to make this little post as an ode to this place and to remember this experience in the future.

    The Sky Deck was an open-air observation deck on top of the Mori Tower, one of the tallest buildings in Tokyo located in the Roppongi Hills complex. This skyscraper has on its top floors the Mori Art Museum and two observation decks: Tokyo City View (interior) and Sky Deck.

    When you’re researching places to visit in Tokyo you can feel overwhelmed because you don’t know when you’ll have the chance to return and it really is an infinite city. Personally, I think that the observation decks are a very interesting visit to better understand the context of the city you’re in. It’s especially advisable to be a little before sunset to see a a wide spectrum of lighting.

    Many tourist guides recommend other places to enjoy views of the city, such as the Tokyo Skytree or the new Shibuya Sky (the only open-air observation deck left after the closure of the Sky Deck). However, I have read few recommendations about the top of the Mori Tower.

    Something I particularly liked about this place was how well located it is. On one side you have the Tokyo Tower very close (which you can also visit, but you know: if you want a photo of Manhattan with the Empire State you don’t go up the Empire State, but the Rockefeller), if you looked to the other side you could see Yoyogi Park, Shibuya, … and of course if you were lucky enough to go up on a good day you could see Mount Fuji keeping an eye on Tokyo.

    The first time I traveled to Japan I did it alone and it was an extremely enriching experience on a personal level. I had never made such a long trip alone before, and the fact that my professional career had taken me there made it even more special.

    I’ll share more experiences in other texts, but getting to the top of this building and seeing the sunset light bathing Tokyo with Mt. Fuji in the background (and a soundtrack fitting the moment) was a kind of culmination and somehow a confirmation that I was doing things right.

    —

    by

    croa_san
    in

  • Boring Phone

    I don’t think I’m the only one concerned about the time we spend looking at apps with content that provides little to us and our attention spans being shortened. Don’t get me wrong, everything has its time and we all need to disconnect at some point, but I personally want to reduce my screen time.

    Some time ago I discovered this “trend” on reddit in which people share their experiences buying old phones to use less social networks and have less distractions. Or the (extremely small) market for new smartphones focused on reducing distractions like the Light Phone or the Hisense with e-ink screen. Of course this has a counterpart: there are certain modern applications that are really useful and do not work on these old phones or are not comfortable to use in these new “limited” phones.

    In the end I came to the conclusion (like other people) that the best thing to do is to “dumb down” your current smartphone… or what I’m going to do: make it boring.

    On my last trip to Tokyo I bought the iPhone 15 Pro Max taking advantage of the currency exchange (yes, when I am in Japanese territory this smartphone makes shutter sound to prevent sneaky photos). I like to upgrade my iPhone whenever I can, especially for the camera improvements, but that doesn’t mean I want to be using it excessively.

    So with the premise “the best dumbphone is the one you already have” I decided to work on a customization layer that despite not limiting what I can do with it, it avoids distractions and getting into the loop of checking apps just for the fact of having them installed.

    The first thing I wanted to try is to imitate the eInk screen of my Kindle Paperwhite. It’s not the same (or fancy like the Daylight), but the effect is quite convincing:

    • Matte tempered glass: I love the effect that is achieved, it avoids a lot of reflections and has a much nicer feel almost like a paper.
    • Night Shift: warm illumination of the screen is how I always use the Kindle.
    • Black and white screen: assigned to a triple tap of the iPhone power button from the accessibility options.

    At software level I’ve made several adjustments to simplify the homescreen. An important decision is to keep the minimum number of visible applications, in my case 8 and of course only those essential ones that do not lead to long periods of distraction. I have also hidden all app pages to keep only the main homescreen.

    To maintain a monochromatic aesthetic coherence I have modified the appearance of the app icons by creating shortcuts using these nice eInk Icons.

    At the time I’m writing this we still have iOS17, so we can’t move the app icons freely yet (it will be available in iOS18), so I’ve used the Blank Widget App to generate empty spaces (top) on the homescreen.

    Our Kemuri trailer

    It may seem silly, but having to think about what you want to check surprisingly reduces the time you spend on “useless” apps (TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, …) because most of the time I opened them it was because they were THERE.
    Having all the possibilities there is great, but knowing that it takes a bit of effort to open these apps and enable the color makes me not open them in situations that have strangely become common (randomly during a TV show, waiting for the elevator, subway, …) and makes me more aware of the world around me.

    —

    by

    croa_san
    in