Same old “Forgotten Frames” story: I had this roll of film in my Pentax Espio Mini for months, then waited so long to get it developed that I didn’t remember much of what was on it. Such as these photos of the band Forrister (and a few of Wicker) that I took in February. I had no clue that’s what was on part of the roll. I’m sure I’ll be posting more random photos from this same roll soon, but here’s the Forrister photos from it!
Pentax Espio Mini • Agfa Vista Plus 400
This could be described more accurately as “discarded roll” rather than “forgotten frames.”
As I recounted in my last post about the Diana, I bought a Diana F+ and sold it after using it a handful of times. I took a few rolls with the camera while I was England, didn’t care for the results, took one more roll, and sold the camera without having that final roll developed. I kept putting it off because I didn’t care to spend good money developing film from a camera I didn’t particularly enjoy. But when I had a couple of other Diana rolls to send the photo lab a few weeks ago, I decided I’d go ahead and chuck this roll in the envelope as well.
These photos were taken in January 2013. When I do these Forgotten Frames posts, I usually say whether or not I remembered what might have been on the film before I got it developed. This is one time when I did somewhat remember what I’d shot on the roll. I just remembered that I had gone to my favorite nearby photo excursion site, Como, Mississippi, which is about 14 miles from my house. Just a short jaunt to get out of my town and into another.
My friend Mallory’s house, back when she had a violist for a roommate
The rest of the photos were, indeed, taken in Como.
The one photo which I remembered would be on the roll when I got the film developed
Como, Mississippi
(I actually duplicated some of these shots when I was testing my second Diana camera)
I think this was probably a pinhole shot, judging by the close distance of the Diana to the subject
Diana F+ Novella • Fuji 160NS
While there’s nothing particularly impressive about these photos, this roll just confirmed what I stated in my aforementioned Diana post: If I thought I wanted to used a Diana from time to time, I shouldn’t have sold the F+ Novella . I didn’t tape the camera up at all for this roll, but you can see that there weren’t really any issues with light leaks. Oh well!
Once in awhile, I bribe my niece (AM) into doing a photo shoot. This is usually when she’s saving to buy something, and I consider paying her to do a little photo shoot is no different than her getting chore money from her parents. But I like to make it a little fun for her.
For instance, last year we did a shoot where AM wore her Hunger Games t-shirt and posed with her bow and arrow. I actually never shared those online. They were taken on color film, but the scans I received from the photo lab were pretty terrible. The colors just weren’t right, and I didn’t want to post photos of my niece where her beautiful skin and amazing red hair didn’t look the way they should!
So I left the photos alone. I toyed with the idea of converting the photos to black and white on the computer. That idea never really went anywhere.
But then…
I was doing another photo shoot with my niece and remembered about the bow and arrow photos from last year. I decided to go ahead and make those photos black and white to see if that made me happier. And did it ever! I am in love with these photos now. I think I appreciate them even more than if I’d done this with them when they were originally taken.
Bronica ETRSi • Zenzanon MC 150mm/3.5 & Zenzanon 75mm/2.8 EII • Kodak Porta 160, converted to b&w
May 2013 (AM, age 11)
I’ve had quite a few “forgotten frames” experiences in recent years. As a result of these experiences, I do not even hesitate to take film in for processing if I find a roll in a drawer, in a packed up box, etc., even if that roll could very well be blank.
That’s what happened with the photos I am sharing today. I found film in a drawer in my parents’ bathroom, which is the room where I used to process black and white film. I don’t know how I hadn’t noticed the roll prior to this, but I decided to take it to the photo lab the next time I stopped in. It was a roll of Ilford HP5+. I knew I hadn’t shot that type of film in years, and I estimated that 2007 would have been the last time I’d had any of it at my parents’ house. That’s all I had to go on when I took the roll for processing. I told the photo lab that the roll could be blank but asked them to go ahead and process it anyway.
When I picked the film up and saw that it wasn’t a blank roll, I was a very happy girl! I squinted at the negatives before getting home to look at the disc of scanned photos and found that I was right about the film’s approximate age. Judging from my niece’s age in the photos and a couple of other context clues, I figured the film must have been taken in December 2006 or January 2007. I cannot, however, discern which camera I used for this roll of film!
From a day at the park with my niece. I LOVE these! You can’t see her face clearly in any of them, so they just feel like little vignettes or impressions of a child playing at a park. She was only 5 when these were taken!
The only thing I can gather is that this roll of film was not taken with an SLR. Very possible that I used the Olympus XA3 I had at the time. Some of them just LOOK “zone focused” (a method where you have to guess the distance between the camera and whatever it is you’re photographing.)
Mikey and Meredith at IHOP, probably after we’d seen some bands play
Food Not Bombs. Typically how I spent my Saturdays at that time.
A BBQ restaurant in my town
Here’s what I mean when I say that the photos were probably not taken with an SLR. Though I don’t even see how I would think this photo would be in focus when I took it (and this photo is one way I placed the time period when this film was exposed, since I had color versions from the same day.)
By comparison, this is a color version of the same photo, taken with a Yashica TL Electro-X (an SLR.)
I tried to do some sleuthing by looking closely at the photos that were taken of windows (like the BBQ restaurant or the elephant one) in case my reflection were visible and I could catch a glimpse of the camera being used. No such luck though! It will remain a mystery.
Film: Ilford HP5+, film expired by the time it was developed in November 2013. Camera: Unknown.