In 1986, Carlo Petrini protested the opening of a McDonald’s in Piazza di Spagna, the heart of Rome, by issuing a call to arms to gastronomic connoisseurs across the globe to slow things down, by savoring our meals instead of gobbling them up. Three years later, the international slow food movement was founded with a manifesto asking the world to “defend ourselves against the universal madness of ‘the fast life’ with tranquil material pleasure,” and thus, the slow movement had officially begun.

It is a cultural revolution against the notion that faster is always better. The Slow philosophy is not about doing everything at a snail’s pace. It’s about seeking to do everything at the right speed. Savoring the hours and minutes rather than just counting them. Doing everything as well as possible, instead of as fast as possible. It’s about quality over quantity in everything from work to food to parenting. – Carl Honoré

The movement has since been expanded to include almost all aspects of life from slow gardening to slow travel, slow fashion to slow sex. There is even a slow photography movement, a backlash against the ever quickening pace of digital photography, favoring contemplating our subject first before making intentional, creative decisions with our cameras to craft our image afterwards.

Slow photography embraces the manual process of making images with slower gear. We can’t help but notice that the resurgence of film photography is linked to the overall slow movement itself, that started with Carlo Petrini more than twenty years ago.

You can, of course, do slow photography with a fast camera. But fast cameras aren’t designed to go slow—even a digital SLR can almost seem to force you to speed up, take more pictures, and get on with it. If you really want to force yourself to do slow photography, the best way is to deal with the demands of older equipment. Non-automatic cameras force you to slow down, way down. – Tim Wu

Kodak CG 400

In my own world, I’ve not only experienced the slow movement through my film cameras, but also through the food I eat. I’ve joined the slow food movement by joining a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), where I paid for a portion of my farm’s crop early in the season, and now receive a share of the nourishing vegetables and herbs grown on the farm each week, bringing me closer to the food that I eat. I even get to chat with the farmer when I pick up my food!

To escape the tediousness of “fast-food”, let us rediscover the rich varieties and aromas of local cuisines. In the name of productivity, the ‘fast life’ has changed our lifestyle and now threatens our environment and our land (and city) scapes. Slow Food is the alternative…” – Slow Food Manifesto

So as summer comes to a close here in the Northern hemisphere, consider slowing things down to savor every last moment the season has to offer. Let’s sink our toes into long, green grass, soak up the warm rays of the sun on our bare skin (with sun screen of course), and allow every bite of the harvest to linger on our tongues. After all,

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. – Ferris Bueller

Until next time,
Holly ~ Soupatraveler