found film (still more woe)

The Wirgin Junior folding camera arrived today. By the by, there's not a heck of a lot out there on this camera, though one site incorrectly refers to it as a 6x9 120 camera. It's not. It takes 6x6 shots.

But back to the woe: Compared with my experience with the Diana 151 that arrived the other day, in this case, I knew that the camera would arrive with an exposed roll of film inside. Still bummed about yesterday's mistakes, I took the time to re-research the best way to develop this film. Otherwise put, although I had developed old, long expired verichrome pan in the past--successfully so, I might add--I didn't want to leave anything to chance. An added complication (and additional motive for conducting re-research) was that I was out of Diafine, my usual go-to developer for old b/w films. Following the advice found here (. . .though I have to admit I was conflicted, thinking that maybe I should follow instead the advice found here?) I developed the film in a 1:14 solution of HC-110 for 8 minutes, agitating for the first 30 seconds and then twice every 30 seconds for the remainder of the development. After the fix and before the rinse I took a peek at the end of the film and was delighted to see that I hadn't botched the development. The truth is, the past couple months have been really sad (or as I'd like to think of them, unlucky) for me where found film has been considered. And by "found film" I mean specifically film shot by another, later found and developed by me. . .this as opposed to finding other people's developed negatives. I call that "just plain lucky." I trashed two rolls as a result of using what turned out to be way-exhausted Diafine. Argh. And then there was the C-41/C-22 debacle yesterday. So with this film, I really needed a win. Or, if not a win, I just needed not to %$&!# this one up too. So, the good news is that I ended up with this image:










. . .a portion of which I'm really quite fond.








and this too. definitely a more abstract-y version of the snow and tree line above. and then there was one other image on the roll--a really uninteresting image of a squirrel sitting in snow. Problem was, the squirrel was so small and the snowy landscape so ginormous you had to magnify the image a lot to figure out the speck on the snow is, in fact, a squirrel.

But that was it. Nothing else on the film. Boo. Not the best couple of weeks (or has it been months?) for me where making pictures has been concerned.

gear: cold storage and expired film

Too bad refrigerator space doesn't increase as frequently as computer hard drive space does cause my fridge is really starting to fill up and I can't really afford another one. Well, not a full-size one anyway, but maybe something like this would be doable. Cute too.

I remember being warned years ago that photos (and songs) eat up valuable hard drive space, so it's best to take care about much you try and put on (or in) your computer. I wish someone had warned me about how much fridge space film eats up. And based on some of the pics I've seen on Flickr, the amount of film I have is nothing compared to what others gots!

On the left side of the fridge door (in what is intended to serve as the butter drawer), I've stored some of the expired film I've found (mostly online). What doesn't fit there is kept in baggies and help in a storage basket on the bottom shelf along with new rolls of 120/220, infrared and other specialty films. Beneath the butter hutch, I store most of my Polaroid film. I've only allowed film to take up 1/2 the shelf space there so, again, what doesn't fit there, goes in the storage basket on the bottom shelf. The left bin at the bottom of the fridge (not pictured here) is marked, I think, for fruits and vegetables. That bin is filled mainly with 35mm film. It contains canisters of film I've purchased as well as cartridges that I've reeled/filled myself here at home.

Finding expired film at reasonable prices online has been a hit or miss thing. I, for one, have never found expired film at an antique store or resale shop unless it's film that is already loaded in the camera. The first couple times I ran across cameras with film still in them, I thought, "wow--how could someone not finish this and/or not remember to have this developed?" Six months later, I'm sitting here with 8-9 cameras loaded with film and I've got nowhere to go (i.e., nowhere, that is, that would allow me to take interesting photographs) and I suddenly "get" how this could happen.
My best online find was a lot of 5 rolls of expired kodak verichrome pan film--120 and 620. The image left was taken with a Diana+ camera with film that expired Dec 8, 1962. I can't recall now what I paid for the lot--I think it was about 12 bucks.

Whenever possible (by this I mean, when it's available and the prices aren't crazy), I'd rather purchase and take images with expired b/w negative film. I bought 5 rolls of Tungsten slide 120 film (expired 3/2000) a few months back and I've really not been crazy about the results. Then again, part of the problem is that my tastes tend toward images that are yellow/orange/red (what I tend to refer to in conversations with myself as "burnt" rather than hot images)--I have to say I care less for cool images--those with a lot of blue in them. In cases like these (i.e., when the final product looks the boat image above), I know I'll likely end up grayscaling the image in post. If nothing else, it helps to disguise the light leaks--something I'm not always a fan of.

I have the same b/w over color preference when it comes to found film--film that's been exposed by someone else and then developed at home by me. Though I admit that I have less control over this--if I see a camera with a partially (or better yet, mostly) exposed roll of film in there, I'll buy it regardless of whether it has color or b/w film inside. It's just that I feel happier or luckier when it happens to be, say, verichrome pan! The "snow tree" image above was found on a partially exposed roll of verichrome pan that came inside the first Windsor (Diana clone) I purchased. The cool thing is that the seller didn't mention that the camera still had film inside. I was lucky I noticed this before opening the back to test the shutter.

Contrast the b/w found image above with this one that I've titled "yellow chairs." Bleeeck. Grainy and wacky-ass color results. And it wasn't a matter of my color dev kit going off. But I guess grain and crazy-colors is fine if your tastes run this way. . .and I guess I did say earlier that I like the yellow/orange/red images more than the blue ones. Still. I was disappointed by the quality and color of the images found on a partially exposed roll of 120 film housed inside a Kodak Duaflex II camera I bought this spring.

piecing together other people's lives

This was yesterday's project--my attempt to articulate, or to piece together, images from other people's live. (click here to view larger image.)

Well, technically speaking, this was going to be Thursday's, Friday's or Saturday's project as I've been stuck at home sick. I put the project off, in part, because I didn't want to cut the roll of negatives that came with a lot of expired (and mostly unexposed) film I recently bought. Making matters worse, the negative strip was/is VERY curly, making scanning the images as well as cutting the negatives into more manageable strips really difficult.

I have no idea what kind of camera was used for these images. I was hoping to put a rough date to the images based on the type of film used for these but all that appears on the edges of the film itself are the words "eastman" "safety" and "plus x." There are (were) 20 exposures on the roll.

I had played around with window-scanning some of these images before I got the idea to create a contact sheet for the roll. My first plan was to place all 20 images on a 4x5 contact sheet, keeping the images in the order they appeared on film. As I started scanning in each image, I decided that I wanted to do more by way of interpreting what I was seeing or understanding about these images. I first decided to jettison from the project the two images that were taken with a portrait/vertical orientation, and decided to create the project with 15 images--five rows with three images in each row. With the first version, the narrative began with what I call "the farm scenes" (see images in the bottom two rows of final version) as they were the first images that appeared on the strip of negatives. The final three images on the strip were actually of the woman in the garden.

As I scanned each of the images, I started clustering them in threes, thinking more about how I wanted this visual narrative to begin, proceed and end. At this point, I had decided not to follow the order of the images on the strip of negatives. I debating beginning the narrative with an image (one that doesn't appear here) of the property and the driveway at a great distance. My thought was to approximate visually the idea of driving up to the house, getting a closer view of the house and drive with each image placed in the first row. Then, with the second row, the viewer would enter the backyard, meeting the woman there, etc.

One of my favorite images on the strip was the lamp image--the only indoor image on the roll, by the way. (For what it's worth, this is my other fav image from the strip.) I really didn't want to leave this one out of the narrative, so I decided to start the narrative indoors with a through-the-window shot. Following this, the narrative would move around to various locations outside where viewers would "meet" so to speak the people in the images. Technically-speaking, the lamp shot might have been placed before the sequence in the second row since the window appears to overlook what I've (perhaps incorrectly?) been calling the backyard. But because the lamp image is darker than the others (never mind that it appears to be framed), it didn't look good place in the middle of the narrative. My sense was that the narrative had to begin or end with the indoor window shot. And because I really liked the way the final three images in the narrative fit together, I didn't want to compromise that, so the window shot was placed at the start of the narrative.

With the first row of images, the viewer begins inside and then moves outside to view the house and driveway. The second row features the woman in the yard. Here I decided to echo the trajectory of the house/drive images--as the narrative proceeds, we get a closer/better view of the woman in the yard. The final image in that row (the one where the woman appears to be holding something up) I also interpreted as a pointing gesture. As though she were saying, "and look who is here." Corny, I know, but it was a way of segueing to the man-with-car image. With the third row, I reverse the trajectory or movement used in the first two rows, using instead the idea of increasing distance and elimination: We see the man and his car, then just the car, then just the drive and garage.

With the next row I transition to what I'm understanding to be the other part of the property, beginning with images of the cows and the landscape more generally. I wanted to end the narrative with images of people associated with that landscape or part of the property. I went back and forth on the placement of the final image, of the young girl. I didn't know whether I wanted to feature her right before the image of the two guys (in this way, the narrative would begin and end with my two favorite images on the strip) or place her at the end of the narrative. I chose to end the narrative with her, with her image. I did this, in part, because I liked the way the final image in the fourth row segued into the tractor shot that appears at the start of the fifth row. But I also ended the narrative with her because it is this photo--while not named here as one of my favorites--is perhaps the most haunting for me. Otherwise put, if I could learn more about any of the characters who appear here, I would choose to know more of her story.

coinky-dink

what a huge coincidence. this new lot of expired film arrived yesterday and shortly after i finished the post on found/expired films. the lot included a snapshot kodaguide, one roll of verichrome 120 (exp.feb '51), one 35mm roll of plus-x pan (exp. jan '58), one 35mm roll of plus-x pan (exp. mar '68), one roll of 35mm super-xx safety film (exp. jan '55) and one 35mm roll of tri-x. I'm not sure of the exp. date on this one since the box is missing. what's more, there's no leader here, so i suspect the film has been exposed.

as for the coincidental part: when i bought the lot, it appeared as though the silver canister (far left) was empty. when the lot arrived, i saw that it contained a roll of developed b/w negs. BONUS! more images to add to my found film set. If the green cartridge in the center of the image also contains exposed film, that could mean 56 more images for that set.

i've window-scanned a number of the negatives (featured below) and I also epson scanned a few last night. the problem is, I don't want to cut the negatives into sections so i was only able to epson-scan the first and last three images on the roll. hmmm. what to do?

It's odd to look at images someone else has taken. You wonder who they were and why these images? I'm considering developing the tri-x later today to see if my guess is correct here--that the film inside is, indeed, exposed. what are the odds that it's held up, will develop, etc. if it has been? I suppose in a worse case scenario, I could develop the film and find that it hadn't been exposed. . .I'd be kicking myself then for not running it through a camera. So it's a gamble (and i"m not a gambler)--I can develop the film and hope for the best or I can run this through one of my cameras and hope for the best in terms of decent double exposures. UPDATE: I decided to develop the roll of tri-x and it was no bueno. It looked like the film had been exposed--there were shadows on the film--but no images showed up (or turned out). boo.

found film

Perhaps the only thing better than finding unexposed expired film for cheap on ebay or in a resale or antique shop is finding exposed expired film in a camera you find for cheap online or in person. I got a windsor diana clone as part of a lot of cameras I bought a couple months ago. Actually, the only reason I even bid on the lot was because of the windsor. As I recall there were a number of 126 cameras in the lot, disc cameras--stuff for which you can't get film. But I saw the diana clone and figured this was a cheap-ish way of getting the camera. (Things on ebay marked as diana clones can get insanely expensive--this just said that a windsor camera was included in the lot.)

I was delighted to find that two of the cameras from that lot had exposed film in them. (In all, there were probably 7-10 cameras in that lot that had film in them but there were only two that had b/w film in them with most of the roll already exposed.) The two images here are from the windsor. There was also a tech model 72 126 camera with film in it. When I was in maine this fall, I picked up a kodak instamatic x-15 with film in it for 4 bucks. Ironically, the x-15 had been part of the lot referred to above, so I didn't technically need another. I just wanted the film inside. I asked if I could just purchase that--the woman at the antique store said no, i had to buy both parts. To be clear: I wasn't looking to save money--I just didn't want to lug home and then find a place to store another camera, particularly one I wouldn't really have occasion to use. The images from the found films can be viewed here.