It had been a few months since I had the excitement of getting negatives and scans back from the lab. I recently purchased an RB67 and decided that I would use it to shoot a roll or expired Ektachrome EPP100 from 2006. Well, the roll ended up being blank. ugh. I don't think it was a camera issue; my good friend Dale had the same issue with the exact same emulsion a few weeks prior. So that left a bitter taste in my mouth... Especially since I now had 9 boxes of this film that might not even turn out.
The bitterness of having wasted $13 to develop a blank roll wore off rather quickly when i went to preview the rest of my loot. Among the film I sent out was a roll of Kodak p3200 I shot in my k1000 this past summer that for some reason never made it to the lab the subsequent times since i shot it. I was very happy with how it all turned out. I feel like this film might take the place of where Delta 3200 has always lived.
The next roll that I got back had me racing home to go look at on my computer. This is Kodak Advantix APS film. Film photography, for me, allows me to capture moments that and look back on them in a different way than i would on my iPhone. This camera is no exception. It starts on my birthday. Middle of September. Let me set it up for you...
It's my birthday, and my fantastic girlfriend decides to throw me a huge party to celebrate. She rents an AirBnB with a swimming pool, cooks and bakes for 30 people, the whole 9. I don't deserve what she did for me, and it's something I'll never forget. This is kind of where I'm going with this story... amidst the wonderful party that my lovely lady set up for me, my dear friend Hunter surprises me with a gift. The gift was a 90's era Kodak Advantix auto pocket camera. I don't generally shoot camera that fit in my pocket, besides my iPhone. So something like this becomes a rare treat. Along with the camera he gave me a roll of the proprietary APS film that the Advantix uses, appropriately also named Advantix. This particular roll was expired from 2003, and likely wasn't kept frozen or refrigerated. I LOVE expired film. Especially color film. It adds a second level of uncertainty to the process. So between a full auto camera, fixed focus, slow expired film and an untested camera of unknown origin.. im excited. The problem I face with that excitement is now knowing what i'm going to burn my roll on. So the camera and roll sat on my desk for the good portion of a month.
Then I noticed the Ferris wheel being constructed.
I knew that if i was going to do this camera and film combo justice it needed to be done at the fair. I've always wanted to bring a film camera on one of the rides but up until now hadn't had anything that was portable enough. Even if my other cameras were portable enough, the idea of losing or breaking them on a ride was too big of a barrier for me, mentally.
I absolutely love the way the emulsion deteriorated over the years leaving the heavy cyan cast across the sky. Those clouds. The way the bottom left corner is red. These photos are unedited, so besides whatever the lab did in their scan, they're untouched.
I really am a lucky man. I have the most caring woman in the world in my corner day in and day out, and awesome friends that understand that theres very few things as exciting as shooting a camera thats foreign to you, with expired film, 30 feet above the ground.
Be sure to check in soon, I still have 3 more rolls I'd like to share.