As I predicted would happen, I found yet another roll of film that slipped through the cracks and remained undeveloped until now. This time, there was no photo of my niece during her formative years to help me pinpoint the approximate dates the film was exposed. There were, however, other tell-tale elements in the photos that helped me determine which camera was used and a few other things about the images.
Camera: Yashica TL Electro-X
How do I know this? That camera has a very distinct light leak. I’ll level with you, folks: I don’t enjoy light leak in my photos. So I do everything in my power to correct them when they rear their ugly heads (or, more accurately, ugly splotches and apparitions.) With the Yashica TL Electro-X, my normal light leak combating measures weren’t so successful. I still haven’t figured out exactly where light is getting into this puppy against my wishes!
Time period of origin: Roughly 2006. Possibly 2007.
There is nothing in these photos that tells me precisely when they were taken, but I can approximate a time frame using clues within the photos.
As I said, I could tell right away which camera I used for these photos because of the particular light leak in the images. I also know they were taken with macro extension tubes attached. These are very clearly test photos (aka “nothing very interesting…”) Furthermore, both the Yashica and the extension tubes arrived in my hands around the same time in 2006. In fact, one of the extension tubes makes a guest appearance in one of the photos!
That leads me to believe that these photos were likely taken during the summer of 2006. I do allow for the possibility that the photographs were made the following year when I was trying desperately to get rid of that dadgum light leak!
Conclusion: I wouldn’t say that I unearthed any photographic gem when this roll of film was finally developed. But, it’s always cool seeing images for the first time when such a great length of time has passed between the time the film was exposed and when it’s developed. It’s a very good thing!
