At one point during the summer of 2020, I was going through a few things in our basement and came across a few rolls of film that had long since expired. Yep, film, just like fruit or a passport, has an expiration date. And just like fruit, if you eat film past it’s expiration date, it probably won’t end well.

So I found some film that had expired and thought I’d give it a whirl, anyway, just to see what it turned out like. Even though I’m pretty adept at knowing what the results will be for film that I’m shooting, there’s always an element of uncertainty, which is part of what’s great about shooting film. That mystery. And the uncertainty is compounded with really old film. The film I found in the basement had expired 20 years ago, which means it was probably manufactured 25 years ago. In fact, that particular film stock has been discontinued for many years.

I called up Olivia and asked her to come in for a portrait. I love her red hair and freckles and wanted to make a portrait of her that highlighted those things. I took quite a few with a digital camera, then got out my twin lens Rollei, and shot one of the rolls of expired film. I love how it turned out.