Whole Roll of Expired Arista Through North County San Diego

There are some really nice images in this set! Most enjoyable!

“Although I totally agree with the author, ALISON HATCH, about the appreciation of the serendipity and the esthetics of every moment, and the use of photography to somehow capture those moments and share them... I am not sure that I can endorse such sentences as:
"There’s something enchanting about shooting with expired film – the unpredictability, the imperfections, the unique character it lends to each shot."
" There’s a certain rawness to expired film that digital photography can’t replicate – a sense of authenticity that comes from embracing the flaws and quirks of the medium."
Let me explain, the only enchantment about shooting expired film is being reminded of one's lapses of memory (forgetting one has film that is going to expire or has already expired) or having been given expired film. If applied to medicines, or food, I'm not sure this approach works. In all cases the results are the same unpredictable and watered-down products if not worse.
I have a tendency to believe that what makes a photograph unique is the photographer, whatever the tools used. The tools are just here to promote the author's vision. I am definitely not aware that it is what is happening here. How could it be? If the point is just using whatever tool for the sake of using them, let us keep the discourse within those realistic limits (and limitations). A better tool allows a broader range of solutions, a lesser tool, as its flaws take over, will limit the expression, and the quality of the expression of its user. (The reason we are not using anesthetic methods of the Middle Ages, as "raw" as they may seem to us now, is that we have better tools. There is no poetry, or I would even risk to say nostalgia, in using them).
I also do not understand why many people who revere expired film (black and white or color and their problematic behaviors seen from the point of view of chemical and tone/color rendition) do not go all the way to collodion and daguerreotype processes (so much older and "nostalgic"), with new technical issues to learn and play with, with all the trials and errors and their awkward but so "raw" and "authentic" results (the Sally Mann way before she could somewhat master the collodion process–to give a real example).
People who dabble in anything, digital photography included, will also produce "raw, unpredictable, imperfect and unique" results. Should we cry enchantment, nostalgia, authenticity every time a door refuses to open easily, an old shoe hurts our toes, a dentist uses painful old techniques to play with our teeth? ...or just make a note for ourselves, and move on to newer tools that make our actions smoother, less painful, takes away the smoke-screens of uncontrollable and failing technology from our means of communication and expression.
My final question here is:
Don't such practices as illustrated above paradoxically put too much emphasis on technology (whether obsolete, nostalgic, or just failing (as expired film does)) and not enough on human expression and creativity? Aren't the tools here endowed with paradoxical (and pseudo) qualities ("raw", unpredictability, "character"–now even obviously bad lenses have a touch of redeeming "character"–criminals also have "character": we have come to a point when almost anything and everything, any or every flaw, can be redeemed with "character") that in fact are just limitations? I can understand self-imposed limitations as part of a strategy toward specific meaning, but limitations for the sake of limitations... do they need to be advertised, glorified or is this just a waste of time, some sort of selfie for social media? A sign of the times I guess.

Thanks for your post Alison! I can't say that I've ever kept film long enough to expire. I imagine it happens if you bulk buy and 50 years ago I was too poor to buy more than a roll at a time - so it never expired. Now it's too expensive to let it expire. All of your shots above are well crafted even if they are of the spaces in between. One thing I guess I've noticed (and don't understand) is that many who post scans of film photos don't bother to do any "clean-up" on them. One thing that I'm not good about is cleaning things up prior to shooting, so I always end up "spotting" my results to take out dust and other odds and ends.

To add a brief respectful counterpoint to a couple of the sincerely expressed views above, shooting expired film ‘on purpose’ is absolutely a legitimate creative endeavour in my book! I've not used expired black and white stock myself, but have shot several rolls of expired colour film, and, to my eye, it can lead to quite wonderful images, which is surely justification in and of itself. Digital photography captures reality, or a sort of hyper-reality, in which the detail is so highly resolved that it eludes human perception in real-time outside the photograph. Film photography can only ever convey a simulacrum of reality. Expired or unexpired film? Surely it’s all really just a matter of degree?

Hi Alison,

I very much enyoyed your article and accompanying photos. Experimenting with expired film is a challenge but can be very rewarding in my opinion.  I view a roll of out of date film as just another tool in my analog toolbox.

My process is to purchase multiple rolls of a certain film stock, shoot in ideal conditions, then, develop and analyze the roll to see what subject matter might be the best match for this particular "tool".

Shooting expired film pushes one to use your imagination and be creative.  This does not always result in a successful photo but isn't trying to get there half the fun?

Purists tend to see things only in black and white. I somtimes enjoy looking at photography in expired shades of gray!

Cheers,

Hello everyone. Thank you for your comments and feedback. This was just a fun project to do, nothing serious or on a professional level. I am a professional family photographer, but I do personal work to help me let go of perfectionism and let creativity prevail. I know that these images aren't perfect, but the assignment from 35mmc was to show a WHOLE ROLL of film. Therefore I had to show the good and the bad, and rarely does an entire roll of film have every image as perfect, and perfect wasn’t my goal but to be in the present moment in a stunningly beautiful place. As for the expired Arista, it was given to me by my brother who is a photography professor. A roll of film that had been forgotten in a college studio for years. My feeling was to bring it back to life and give the roll of film the spotlight. As for the content of the article, again, doing a tutorial wasn't the assignment from the magazine. I have done a tutorial on blind doubles over at Shoot It With Film. If you’d like to see that here is the address. https://shootitwithfilm.com/how-to-shoot-blind-double-exposures-on-film/ I understand that culturally our society has decided that the comment section of any online platform has become a place for anyone, regardless if they are qualified to do so or not, to share their opinion and criticize. I would hope that in a place of art, where it is always subjective, as film photographers we would choose to support instead of tear down.

Hey Alison - nice article. Don't mind the negatives - they are rare here and dear old Bruno just occasionally shoehorns the same strongly held views (I almost said rant there) into various posts. I've received a couple from him but I'd miss him if he left. I'd propose that anyone who read your article thoughtfully would see that the project was a success, and was about your personal outcomes rather than the quality of shots, and that the expired film bit was just a part of it. Out of respect commenters should have checked your track record (which I did) and gained a little more understanding about your professional practice using film. There is a bit of thing on the net where people with limited experience can bang on a bit about how great the "look" of expired film is, and that can make film-natives roll their eyes a bit. Anyway, this has inspired me to get back to the piece I'm doing on the whys and hows of expired film. I hope you, Bruno and whole gang will jump back in for more discussion when that comes out. Cheers.