I’m almost too ashamed to post this but I’m so angry I have to

Let me preface this by saying I already know what you’re going to say in response to this- Val, if you knew better, why did you do it anyway? To which I will respond, I’m basically a f**king dumb-ass who HAS to learn things the VERY HARD way. Moving on.

I love film and film photography, but when it comes down to it I’m very irresponsible and in retrospect I could save myself a LOT of hassle and frustration by just doing things the right way and not the cheaper way or more convenient way, basically I need to start acting like a damned professional if I ever want to be one.

When I first set out to teach my niece photography I bought a 5 pack of really cheap film, knock off brand… Now let me just state that I’ve NEVER EVER had problems using cheapo film before this experience, and her first roll came out just fine, granted we weren’t taking photos of very much variety so the exposures were all about the same on those rolls we developed. I figured hey this film did decently enough before, I’m sure I could rely on this cheap film to get me through my Hoover Dam visit and my most recent visit to Petaluma and Bodega for some cemetery stuff….Oh boy was I wrong. For some reason this film DOES NOT like to be over or underexposed AT ALL. Like, PERIOD. I’ve never encountered film issues like this before and I’ve never ended up with foggy film either. At first I thought it was my shutter getting stuck or something mechanical, but I’ve shot in B&W in between these rolls of color and they have turned out just fine, all properly exposed, none fogged. This film is bipolar or something, I mean it is C H E A P. I honestly don’t know why I thought I could get away with using it, I was just too lazy to go out of my way to go pick up some nicer film, which by the way is becoming scarce as it is and my only in-store options are 200, 400, and 800 speed film in usually one brand. Most stores only carry one brand or the other, or their very own cheap devil-film which I have banned myself from ever touching ever again.

I knew better. I knew I should use better film and yet I used the worst film ever and expected it to be fine, and it wasnt, and I’m pissy because I am THAT stupid and those were all amazing shots that are gone because I pushed the borders on what the film liked. Fickle little film, isnt it?

Its times like this I really hate owning up to my love of film because all you digital freaks out there say “ha told you so.”

In my defense, a drum scan of a frame of film is equivalent to 25 megapixels. Which means a medium format negative would create a mural, in fine detail. You seriously can’t beat that with DSLRs in the same price range as my old ass film camera.

So. Lesson learned. From now on I’m just going to order my film from B&H in bulk and go from there… at least my bodega roll was somewhat salvageable.

Also on the plus side, the photos that they did decide were exposed enough to scan onto the cd, some had some interesting effects and one really creepy one, a weird light issue right over the horizon of the cemetery…all you can see are trees and some scattered headstones…mama like.