I love a road trip through my state of California. For the long Thanksgiving weekend, my husband, Sam, and I packed the car and headed up to San Francisco, each with a film camera and ready for adventure.

I love how film changes the pace of travel. You can’t just quickly snap fifty photos and pick the best one later. Every frame feels intentional; you look around a little longer and decide whether the moment is worth it. That slower rhythm ended up shaping the whole trip.

Sam had brought a camera too, and it was honestly one of the best parts of the weekend. There’s something really fun about shooting film with someone else who’s excited about it. We’d stop somewhere, wander around for a few minutes, and occasionally compare what we were seeing through our viewfinders. Sometimes we were photographing the exact same scene from totally different angles.

My camera ended up having some light rings on a few shots. Normally, that might be frustrating, but when I saw the scans later, I kind of loved it. The rings gave some photos this soft, dreamy halo effect, like the images were glowing a little. Film is unpredictable like that.

That’s the magic of shooting film on a trip like this. You’re not just documenting the places you went, you’re capturing the feeling of being there together. Every time I look through them, I’m right back in the car, driving north with two of my favorite people and a camera in my hands.

~Staci Lee