Old Film - Old Pictures

Okay, enough about pinhole photography for now at least!

Here is a shot from the past. This picture was taken around Easter of 2000 but the film was just processed a few weeks ago. My son (who is now 15) is kissing my granddaughter (now 12) on her head as she sits on my lap. I apparently still had a few dark hairs left in those days - not many, but certainly more than I have now.

Although I would not recommend that anyone delay processing exposed film for a more than a decade, or even a few  years I confess there is something exciting about running across exposed film that you didn’t even  remember shooting. 

Normally the waiting game associated with film processing adds an element of excitement to the whole picture taking process that is lacking with digital photography (although some would argue that this is a good thing). Imagine how much more intense this is when you send off a mystery roll to be processed not knowing what’s on it or even when it was exposed. 

My wife recently unearthed a zip lock bag full of exposed 35mm film while digging through her closet. Having no idea what was on the film or when they were exposed I started sending the film to be processed a couple rolls at a time. Imagine my delight when I discovered that not only did the pictures come out fine but that they were taken over a decade ago!

Now there are some old or obsolete films that you may have problems getting processed because the chemistry is obsolete too. For those instances check out my April 1^st blog post about “Film Rescue International” or go to “www.filmrescue.com.”