Expired Film On A Silent Beach
I used to work with expired film a lot. There was an interesting window in the history of photography when everyone was predicting the death of analogue film. If you were a photographer still insisting on working in an analogue medium when everyone was scrambling to buy the latest high resolution digital camera, that meant everywhere you looked people were selling off large batches of expired film for pennies on the dollar.
Sometimes I could walk into a camera shop and get rolls of film for as little as fifty cents. Hop onto sites like eBay and expired film listings were all over the place. Heck, in many cases I’d see craigslist ads for people dumbing out closets full of expired film free to anyone willing to come pick it up! It was a nutty time that I don’t think I fully appreciated. I was so worried that film wasn’t going to be available in the future that I wasn’t thinking about how easy it all was on my bank account.
Those days are unfortunately long gone. In fact, I’ve noticed that sometimes expired film even sell for a premium these days. I guess people are so desperate for an organic distressed look in their images that they are actually willing to pay more for a roll of film that could potentially be flawed. I find this particularly nuts when you consider the fact that 95% of the time working with film that is expired shows no noticeable difference from a fresh roll of film. This is particularly true with black and white film stocks, especially if they are only a few years out of date.
The images on this post are from a batch of ten rolls of Fomapan 100 medium format film I picked up for about five dollars at a swap meet. The film was about three or four years beyond its expiration date and I had no information on how it was stored during that time. The most noticeable issue that one can see when looking at the final developed images is that little bits of the 120 backing paper stuck to the emulsion, resulting in little spots all over the frame. In all honesty, I’m not particularly bothered by them. I don’t think they take away from the image too badly. The overall contrast on the images came out a little bit on the low side as well, but I consider that a positive. It gives the images a bit of a dream like effect which works.
These days I don’t work with expired film nearly as often as I used to. In part out of principle I refuse to pay more for a roll of expired film when I can get a fresh batch for less cost. Even though I enjoyed some of the unpredictable nature of expired film, as is the case with the images here, it is not worth the risk of getting bad results at an inflated price tag.
Camera: Hasselblad 500c/m with 80mm f/2.8 lens.
Film: Fomapan 100 in medium format. Expired by about three years.
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