File this under “that’s just crazy!”
I pride myself on being fastidious about getting film developed in a very timely manner, as well as making sure I know what the content of each roll is when I get it developed. Well, I thought I was fastidious about that, until this past year or so. First there was the half 2006, half 2010 roll of film, then there was the mystery Holga roll, next it was this test roll from 2006 I sorta forgot to get developed, and now the subject of today’s post! I think I am going to have to add a new category to my blog called “forgotten frames” since this keeps happening…
Backstory: When I moved this summer, I noticed some rolls of film in my things. I assumed they were blank (that perhaps they had been misloaded in a camera and rewound before actually being exposed, that they’d accidentally been exposed to light, etc.) I thought it would be good to take the film into the photo lab just in case my normally fastidious film record keeping skills had failed me. When I picked up the developed film, I’d found that I was right: some of the film was unexposed, some of it had been fogged by exposure to light, and my record keeping had failed me when it came to one of the rolls. And this failing in my film record keeping is one of the biggest treats I’ve had in some time. I am smiling from ear to ear!
That’s because the forgotten frames of film held some gems of my favorite person, when she was half as old as she is now. Once I looked at the pictures, I knew EXACTLY what was going on here. I remembered this day well. And fondly.
It was summer of 2007. My aunt was staying in a motel while damage to her house was being repaired. My niece, who was five at the time, and I went swimming at the motel’s pool. I took my Yashica Electro 35 GT into the water with me, which probably wasn’t advisable since I could have completely ruined the camera if I got it wet. I came out with some of my favorite photos of my niece ever (see here). I also had another camera with me that day. It was an underwater/waterproof camera I’d purchased a couple of years before but hadn’t gotten much use from since, you know, it’s not like I spend my weekends kayaking or snorkeling. But swimming in a motel pool was a good chance to use it!
I don’t know why I didn’t get this film developed at the time it was used. I think it may have been because I wasn’t that keen on this camera. I hadn’t much liked results I’d gotten from it previously. But, as I said, I am so glad that I got the treat of seeing these for the first time four years after they were taken! They’re so precious!
BEST. PICTURE. EVER.
I am pretty delighted right now.
Prologue:
Now, maybe you noticed the colors are kind of weird in these photos. There are also dark curves at the top and bottom of each photo. The weird colors are from years of heat damage to the film – that can make the colors get all whacked out. The dark curves, well, I was surprised at the source of those. I thought that perhaps the film had curled up in the negative scanner at the photo lab because heat damage can also cause film to curl. But, no, the blackened areas are actually ON the negative. I dug out the (now broken and unusable) waterproof camera and found that the the plastic frame inside it was bent. Basically, the weirdness of this roll of film is all due to the sort of happy accidents that happen from time to time when shooting film. I couldn’t reproduce if I wanted to.
It even works on snapshots of my niece with a chocolate bar!
