I’ve taken over the closet in our guestroom. The upper shelves are stacked with acid-free boxes filled with prints and plastic, three-ringed cases, with years and years of negatives filed away in sleeves. A metal shelf holds two backpacks, one filled with a 4×5 camera and the other with a Pentax 6×7 and all of the necessary accessories and lenses. There are boxes of paper and chemicals for making prints. A large UV light source and a couple of tripods in the corner. Two artist portfolios containing my Platinum/Palladium prints are jammed in the remaining space. Some of this stuff has been there, untouched since we moved in. This is where I found an unlabeled box full of 35mm film. Seventy rolls of Arista Premium 400 that I had forgotten about, all dated 12/2014.
Years ago, Freestyle Photo in Los Angeles sold a 35mm film called Arista Premium 400. This house brand was not a new emulsion, but Kodak Tri-X which had been re-branded. It sold for half the price of the same film with the Kodak label. When the store announced that they would be discontinuing the film and then discounted the 24 exposure rolls I bought 20 bricks. I’d been burning through the stuff and didn’t anticipate slowing down, so why not?
Now I have a nice stash of familiar film that is long expired, so there is no sense in acting like it’s precious. Shoot it like it’s free film! That’s what I did this last weekend going through three rolls on one of our long walks. These snapshots made with my Xpan are from the first of the found rolls. They even include a selfie and two vertical panos.
Hopefully, all of the found film is in the same condition as these three rolls. I’m completely satisfied with how the negatives turned out.
All photos were made with my Hasselblad Xpan and 90mm lens then developed in XTOL (1+1).
