A while back I came into a roll of film that expired in 1992. It was Kodak Ektar 125, discontinued in 1991, but famous for its saturated colours. I kept it aside and waited for sunny weather that would make the most of the colours.
Eventually, I decided to shoot the film in an old camera – A Voigtländer Vito II that once belonged to my grandfather, and was used to document the aftermath of the Korean war in the mid 1950s. The camera still works perfectly, although the light seals appear to be worn and it is leaking light. I should probably fix that before I use the camera again.
I exposed the film at ISO 50 rather than the rated ISO 125, to compensate for the loss of speed that is expected with age. It still came out a bit underexposed and I could probably have done with exposing it at ISO 25. The film has exhibited a green/blue cast and massive colour shifts which seem to depend on the total exposure received by that negative.
Nonetheless, the pictures are quirky and unusual, and I’m quite pleased with some of these. No post-processing apart from fixing the underexposure!
Jonathan Gazeley 