Malcolm D. Anderson

Singular Subjects (plus Stitch)

Hits and misses, number four.
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A very smart young lady suggested I explain a little about the problems in those images that miss the mark, so, if you’re interested:

Let’s start with light leaks! Light leaks appear differently based on what exactly happened to the film, but you can see them as the white spots in a few of the images I have been posting. These leaks happen when the back cover of the camera is either not fully sealed or when the back cover is opened or removed in anything except total darkness. This leaks light onto the film, which is light sensitive and causes parts or at times, the entire image to be completely over exposed and therefore unrecognizable. Film photography is essentially just a careful manipulation of the amount and intensity of light allowed to interact with the chemicals on the surface of the film. Adjustments are made in fractions of a second and millimeters, so opening up the camera and removing the shield of metal or plastic which seal the film in darkness results in a gigantic amount of light flooding a very sensitive medium and can deliver you a roll that is 36 or 12 white frames.

Which sucks, for a lot of reasons. Light leaks happen to me a lot because often times I don’t finish shooting a whole roll all at one time, and then when I go to load a new roll of film on a new shoot, I bungle the in-progress roll.

And believe me, I have attempted about five different methods to reduce the frequency, and it doesn’t happen as often, but it is something I legitimately have to be mindful of so I don’t destroy precious, priceless memories frozen in time.
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TLDR:

Opening your camera with film still spooled across the back blasts it with uncontrolled light and can destroy the image or the entire roll of film.
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Pentax PC-550, Leica M3 SS, Nikon F5, Canon AE-1 Program, on Ilford XP2 400 and Kodak Portra 160, 400 and 800.
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#2021

Some hits and some misses. It’s difficult to show the ones you get wrong, but in 2021, I’m going to open my photography back up to failure.
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Some Leica M3 SS, some Pentax PC-550, all Kodak Portra 400.
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#2021