The Shots That Almost Weren't

Friday was 127 Day (yay!) and I was determined to get a shot to submit for it.

My beautiful old 1925 Ica Icarette Model 488 was loaded with a roll of 50 year old + Verichrome Pan. It's always risky business shooting with film that old, but I'd had decent results with another old roll of Verichrome, so I thought it would be a worth a try.

Shooting seemed to go well and I had a great time meeting a fellow experimental photographer at my favorite coffee place, Magpie.

I wanted to get home right away and process this roll so that in the case that it didn't work, I would have time to go out and shoot another roll. That's when things started to go downhill.

I've never had any trouble spooling 127 film onto the developing reel, in fact I usually enjoy it, as it's quite a bit easier for me than spooling 120 film. Not this time though. When I pulled the film out of the camera and off its paper backing, it seemed unusually thin. So much so that I had a hard time discerning the film from the backing paper once they were apart.

As I attempted to load the film onto the reel, it began to buckle and crumple, a little more so each of the 20 or 30 times I attempted to load it onto the spool. I finally had to admit to myself that it was a lost cause, so I sealed the roll up in the empty developing tank while I decided what to do.

I no longer have a method for making any part of the house dark enough for handling film, so I knew whatever I came up with would have to happen in my small light tent.

I wound up putting a couple 4x5 developing trays in the light tent, one filled with a 1:50 Rodinal solution, the other with fix. I attached binder clips to either end of the film strip to keep it from curling on itself and agitated it by hand in the tray.

The process worked fairly well, the film is pretty mangled by my rough handling and tryng to load it onto the spool, but there are images! The double exposures are intentional, if not much else is.

Oh. This is the first time I've used my Lomo Digitaliza, a neat little lighted phone holder with adapters for 35mm, 120 and 127 film. It's pretty sturdy and very nicely done and was quick, easy and fun to use.