Volcano, originally uploaded by davidondrik.
Some of you may be aware that I teach high school art as a day job. Last school year, one of my Painting & Drawing students dropped off a bag of old film for me. I assume that it was something that her family had laying around. There were some real gems of the past in there, like an unopened box of Kodak Tech Pan, some 4×5 that expired in the 1970s, and a full brick of 120 Kodak Ektachrome. The Ektachrome expired in 1982, but this was the most alluring Ghosts of Christmas past.
I had recently been reintroduced to, of all things, Nine Inch Nails’ video for Closer. Apparently it was shot on very expired film, and it has a distinct and appealing aesthetic (aside from what was…borrowed…from Joel-Peter Witkin and Francis Bacon.) So I really wanted to try out this very old slide film.
Well, it generally worked. I went on a little walk with Becky, and the Brams, out at the Three Sisters on the West Side of Albuquerque, and shot a roll through my Mamiya C330. Camera & Darkroom was good enough to process it for me, saving a trip to Santa Fe to have it done directly.
There are no blacks on the original slides. Background radiation over the last 25+ years has exposed the film. However, my Epson scanner was able to correct (to some extent) the damage. I posted the 4 best photos from the trip to my Flickr, which you can view here.
I’m very excited to see what comes out with a Holga. The decrepit film, and the decrepit camera, seem a match made in Pictoralist heaven.