The imperfection of memories
Fomapan 100, a relatively cheap Czech produced film that I used to buy in the late 1990s, I seem to recall that it came in at around $1.50 a roll of 36 shots on 35mm format - at the time I thought that was ideal so I used to buy in packs of 10. Fast forward 25 years and I discovered that I have a few rolls in my cupboard that are dated as expiring February 2002, given that I only had 120 film for the Rolleiflex felt in there I decided that despite the fact I hadn’t always got the best results with expired film I’d give it a go as a way of taking a look at the way the Carl Zeiss Distagon 35mm F2 I’d just acquired to pair on the trusty Nikon FM3A renders on film.
An early 2000’s dream line-up - Nikon FM3A, Zeiss Distagon 35mm F2 and Fomapan 100
The big mistake I’d made before was not pushing the film enough to compensate for the loss in sensitivity in the film emulsion resulting from being expired and not really that well stored. The last film that I’d tried from this batch I shot in Athens 2 years ago and everything came out misty and totally underexposed. Determined not to suffer the same fate again I decided to override the DX Coding of the film and manually set the sensitivity of the camera at 50 ASA - one stop more than the 100 ASA box speed, this made the film already a little uncomfortable to use on the streets but in the middle of the day now that we’ve passed the equinox in Tbilisi I felt that there would be enough light to play with.
A timeless peaceful empty balcony scene in Kala, Old Tbilisi
Together with the lab technicians at Qwerty Film Lab we decided to push the film 1 more stop to accommodate the degradation of the film and it turns out that this was about right. You can find a lot of information about relatively recently exposed films online but not so much about more out-of-date ones and certainly not so much about Fomapan - which is one of the reasons I’m. mentioning this here - I think a solid run of thumb for a 100 ASA film is 1 stop per 10 years to slow down (push) so in this case I did one stop in camera and one stop in development = 2 stops so essentially the 100ASA film was treated like a 25ASA.
No straight lines in this Kala Courtyard just off Kote Apkhazi Street in Tbilisi
This year, after a hiatus of a few years I’m back teaching a photography group - this is always a solid challenge to break down the many years of learning I’ve done myself and try making it accessible to those at the beginning of their photographic careers. I often talk about painting with light because in essence that’s what we’re trying to do with our cameras. We have a photosensitive media, be that a CMOS or CCD sensor or a sheet of silver halide emulsion and we use available light to freeze a scene that we compose through a lens - what results is the capture of a memory, we record how we see something - which may reveal something about us and how we felt in the moment that we pressed the shutter, it may also convey some feeling to a viewer of the image at a later date. Photography is by its very nature a nostalgic exercise. The choices we make as to how we post-process images in the case of digital photographers using mirrorless and DSLR cameras say as much about the feeling we wish to convey as the choices of a film photographer selecting a film stock or deliberately choosing to use a grainy and out of date black and white film stock.
For me the transition between sharp and out of focus on the Zeiss Distagon 35mm F2 is magical
When I got to posting the first images from the film I got back 3 days after shooting to Instagram I found myself reflecting on the imperfect nature of memories and how these often felt similar to the results we can get from expired film stocks. So accustomed have we become to sharp, perfectly exposed, hyper-saturated images that when we now come across these imperfect emulsions there’s a different emotional connection we feel, and this is amplified when these photos are printed and we can see them up close. For those who enjoy such visual pleasures do go and check out Fotografia in Tbilisi - you may even find some of my work on display there.
What I’m looking for in a lens is this lovely sharpness and then the way the out of focus areas fade
The wrought ironwork is a particularity of Tbilisi that sets it apart from other cities
Overall I was pretty pleased with the results of the 20+ years expired Fomapan 100 experiment but I will of course go back to shooting finer and more colourful film stocks as we enter the tremendous Tbilisi springtime when so many courtyards and buildings are enveloped in blossom and the colours pop with the radiant southern sun. I’m glad that I’ll now be able to capture this on 35mm with a classic 35mm lens which gives just that little bit more width than the 50mm I usually shoot on. Watch this space for colourful updates!
Worth climbing the 3 floors to get the perfect angle for this shot.
