From my early childhood I have a memory of my parents shooting a couple photos during the holiday season, a couple more during my birthday party, maybe ten or twenty on the family vacation and then–when the roll of 24 exposures was used up–they’d pop the film outta the back of the camera and throw it in the drawer. Usually after about another month or two they’d re-discover the roll. And they’d run it down to the local drugstore, retrieve it a week or two later and voila! We’d be looking at pictures that were already a year old or more. We of course, didn’t care. This is the way photography just ‘was’. And i suspect that if you’re in your late 20’s or 30’s or older that you may have had similar memories.
While I’m talking of these things like they’re a hundred years ago, funny thing that a similar thing happened to me just recently. It’s a little different in that we’re talking moving pictures. I’ve got this waaay cool, old Bolex 8mm movie camera that I bought at a used camera about 15 years ago. Sometime last year I was plowing through old gear and I stumbled on that great old camera and….lo and behold…there were a handful of undeveloped film cartridges. I zipped them across country to one of the only places left that was developing this old Kodak stock and what I got back brought a huge smile to my face. Me and a couple of buddies–Scott who you know well and another buddy Glen–from more than a DECADE AGO with long skateboards, baggy shorts and pants, cruising down long, rolling hills… during the summertime in the nearby Cascade Mountains. We sewed that footage together just recently and I’m happy to share it with you here today for fun.
And as a reminder. If by chance you occasionally shoot film (or you always shoot it?) and if you’ve got undeveloped rolls laying around. Go develop them. I’m banking the results will be worth your time.
[Thanks to The Dutchess & The Duke for the soundtrack. Also, this post was inspired by this great post: The Zen of Undeveloped Film over at LaPuraVida]
The soundtrack really sets the perfect mood for this video.
Something nearly as exciting as an undeveloped roll of film is finding a box full of negatives from 80 years ago! My grandmother’s brother was a hobbyist photographer who recorded many family events and the negatives produced prints no one in the family can ever remember seeing before. It’s like a treasure trove of family history.
ths shts gold!
(which’s one’s you?)
I guess your road was pretty much layed before you 😀
Laurent Egli
Geneva Switzerland
very cool stuff Chase!
My surprise experience of developing old film was after my Dad passed away and we came across several rolls of undeveloped film from the early 1960’s. Dad was in his 20’s, in the military and stationed in England. Several days after dropping them off at a camera shop in Tacoma I get a call from a detective questioning me about who was in the pictures because they thought there was a possible homicide! The pictures were of two couples in a field in England and very drunk (of course my Dad was one of the people there). One of the women apparently was passed out in the grass and was being put back in the car. After a short investigation by the Detectives they determined that it was just that, four people drinking and no harm done.
I remember my Dad as being somewhat mild mannered but Mom always said that he used to be pretty wild when she met him. Those pictures were a glimpse into Dad’s wild side, I cant imagine what I could find if there was the internet back then!
Very cool. Would love to see a photograph of you from those time!