The perils of using long-expired
35mm Film are well known to photographers, but probably worth the risk if the price is right. This one cost just a pound from a local flea market, expiry date unknown. Could have been stored in an oven for all I know, but just a pound, so even with the cost of developing factored in, probably worth the risk.
If your film roll comes without the original box however, as this one did, even a pound might be pushing it. Because I've now discovered to my dismay that the appearance of a tail of film stock protruding from the canister is no guarantee that the film hasn't already been exposed.
When I received these scans from my trusted local developer, my first reaction was that they'd sent me someone else's photos, an embarrassing mistake if true. But no, closer inspection revealed that this
was the film I'd run through the FED, but sadly for me someone else had already run it through their camera first! Sad too for whoever took the original photos, a series of family snaps that I obviously won't be displaying on here, and the identity of which will probably never be known.
The three images I've chosen here, whilst clearly double exposed, don't feature anything recognisably personal from the original exposures. I'm quite pleased with the framing of
Foxton Locks (
above), but there appears to be a landscape with houses there too, definitely not Foxton Locks. The
Oakham Peacock (
below) has come out better than most, albeit with some strange architecture and lighting that shouldn't be there, but my atmospheric photo of the
Skittles Table at the
Alexandra Arms in
Kettering (
bottom) is just a bizarre collage of who knows what, where, or indeed why. Even the Skittles Pins are a bit shaky-camera! Oh well, I'm pleased to say that my final-
final expired film has produced much better results...
