Funky Film

One of the most fun parts of film photography is getting to try out different films. Traditional films each have their own special look, but with the huge reduction in film production, the film shooter community has gotten creative, using found stashes of expired films and even films not entirely meant to be run through a still camera. I have three of these oddball stocks in my collection now and I’m looking for just the right use for each.

The most normal one is a roll of the Film Photography Project’s Retrochrome 400. This is government surplus 400 speed Kodak Ektachrome color positive (slide) film that expired in 2004. They say it performs perfectly well still so they’re pretty sure it was in some sort of deep freeze for the last 15-some years. I’ll probably save this for my  little project I have coming up in the fall that I’ve not written about yet. Soon. Oh, and those two other rolls of Ektachrome 100? They’re for the project as well. Stuff is becoming hard to come by and I wanted to make sure I had enough.

I’m also sitting on a roll of the Film Photography Project’s X-2, made from Eastman’s Double X black and white motion picture film. This is the film stock used to shoot Raging Bull, but hand-rolled into recycled 35mm film canisters. It’s a 200 ISO film, so it will have a pretty wide latitude. I might try shooting this one inside so I can open up my lens wider than I’m able to outside with 200 speed film. 

The last funky film is, I think, the funkiest. It was also purchased from the Film Photography Project but produced by some folks called Washi. They make a series of films at a variety of ISO’s and this one is called Washi “S” and the “S” is for sound. That’s because it was made to record audio, not images. Apparently, recording on 35mm film was the high fidelity thing back in the day, to the extent that several of Frank Sinatra’s albums bragged about being recording on film. It’s a 50 ISO black and white film, which will be great in my camera outside. The folks at FPP say it’s super high contrast and very low grain. Aside from outside, I’m not sure what I’ll shoot with this one. 

I have my eye on some other non-traditional films, such as a few other motion picture films, a still camera film made for security cameras and one made for high altitude surveillance photography. One of the rewards of getting comfortable developing at home is that I feel confident trying these other stocks, and since the cost of processing is so small, I don’t feel bad spending a few bucks on a film that may or not give me anything worthwhile. 

Road Trippin’ with Pedro

 Now that the lovely Miss Lisa and I are vaccinated against The Plague we have ventured forth into the world again. That was the toughest part of the Plague Times, the staying at home. We’re not staying at home people. At all. In the Before Times we were always hearing people ask us where we were going next or telling us they liked following us on social media to see where we would end up next. People would ask, “Aren’t you ever at home?” Doing what, I wondered. Mowing the grass? Dusting the house? Watching TV?

 I really don’t know what the stay at home crowd does at home. It’s not a part of my experience. Growing up, we were always on the move. We’d just “take a ride” on the weekends, with no particular destination in mind. Going for the sake of going has been my normal. So, fair warning, you will begin seeing blogs about getting out into the world, because when we go, the camera (or, now, cameras) goes too. Photography was always a part of the roaming life for me, and the two combined remain one of my life’s great joys. 

Last weekend we took a ride up I40 to the Meadow community in Johnston County. It’s really kind of in the middle of nowhere, but as Raleigh grows it’s becoming closer to somewhere. We were there for the pie. Chocolate cream pie, to be precise. You see, the lovely and talented Lisa stops at the Meadow Restaurant for lunch on the way home from business meetings in Raleigh. She raves about the place, or, I should say, the pie. It’s a country buffet restaurant and the food is pretty standard country buffet food. The desserts, however, are amazing, especially the chocolate cream pie. It was killing Lisa that I’d never experienced this pie, so off we went to lunch, a few hours up the interstate to a crossroads in the Middle of Nowhere, North Carolina. As one does. 

Lisa had heard from someone that there was a Meadow Museum. We’re suckers for museums and a museum named for a town that isn’t even actually a town and that contains exactly one restaurant, one gas station, one fertilizer store and said museum……well, we had to go. It did not disappoint. Neither, by the way, did the pie.

I’ll write more about our photo-tour of this museum another day, but for now I’m bringing this back to those road trips of my youth. My favorite trip was the drive to Florida. One of the best things about driving to Florida from Pennsylvania is watching out for the increasing numbers of South of the Border signs as you approach the NC-SC state line and that glorious piece of roadside kitsch. Most of the signs feature Pedro, the South of the Border mascot who would, I’m sure, be considered a bit problematic today. He’s a caricature of a Mexican guy and he’s the king of bad Spanish-English puns. Here today, gone tamale and stuff like that. And the signs worked. By the time you’d passed your hundredth one, how could you NOT stop? And stop we did. Never to eat (my dad said he’d eaten a burrito there once before I was born and it almost killed him) nor, heaven forbid, to sleep in their motels, but we’d browse the junky gift shop and I’d beg for fireworks. It was great. 

How’s this relate to the Meadow Museum? As it turns out, the man who owns the museum once worked for the Department of Transportation and he’s gathered some discarded highway signs, including those advertising South of the Border. These weren’t the huge billboards with the puns, but they were classic and looked exactly like South of the Border signs were supposed to look and they brought me right back to the back seat of our station wagon rolling down I95 to go see Mickey.

I had the old 35mm Petri film camera because Lisa asked to use the mirrorless that day. It was the perfect camera and it was loaded with Kodak Gold 200, the iconic vacation color print film. I’m going to say that there’s not a better way to shoot old South of the Border signs than with a 1960s vintage camera and Kodak Gold. 

Three of the signs were outside and one was inside, but there was plenty of light and the film has incredible exposure latitude. It’s hard to screw it up, really. I’m very happy with the images I brought back. They remind me of my childhood and of our return to the road after this past horrible year, so they serve double duty of making me happy.