Accidents Happen.

It's been a couple of weeks since I got back from my trip to Cape Cod. While I'm normally pretty modest with how many photos I take--it can even take me a few months to go through a roll of film--during those 5 days, I shot 7 full rolls of film and 3 1/2 packs of polaroid film. It was a mix of black & white and color, some medium format, some panoramas, and some regular old 35mm. I also wrote more than 30 new haiku in the travel journal I kept. It was a creativity tornado. But with that many photos (I estimate it was close to 200 pictures I took!), there were bound to be some issues. And sure enough, I had a few.

An entire roll of 120 film I shot had a light leak on every photo. Image taken at Rock Harbor Beach. Diana camera with Streetpan 400 film.

For starters, I had purchased a 5 pack of black & white polaroid film before the trip. Excited to try it out, I discovered that every shot I took was way overexposed, even with the exposure wheel set all the way in the black. There was hardly any detail in the photos. I got a bad batch.

I also had a couple of cameras jam. Thankfully I was able to fix the issues, but not without the loss of some of my film.

Finally, I finiahed my last roll of the trip using the Holga that I love so much. I'm always super careful when loading film to make sure it catches and advances properly. Well, I shot through that whole roll, and then some. By the end, I got a bad feeling, and sure enough, I was right. For the first time, I didn't load my film right. It never advanced, and I shot through a whole roll without capturing anything.

If I hadn’t messed up loading that film, my images would have looked something like this.
Image taken at Sandy Neck. Holga 35 camera on Ilfocolor 400 film.

While it was all a little disappointing, I didn't let myself get too bummed out. Instead, I learned from it and made the best of it. I scanned in those whitewashed Polaroids and brought them back to life. I learned a new trick to make sure my film is loaded the right way. And now I have some memories that I have to laugh at. Sometimes it's the pictures you don't take that stay with you the most.

One of my overexposed Polaroids, after some digital manipulation.
Image taken at Great Island.

And honestly, if something awful happened and I was left with no images at all, the trip would have all been worth it. Thankfully, that's not the case... so stick around to see more new work from this excursion.