You might remember a couple years ago that some of my posts were sponsored by Analogue Wonderland, that film superstore in the UK. They sent me a big box full of various films, and the only thing I had to do in return was plug them when I blogged about those films. Paul, one of the founders, really liked my writeups about those rolls. When I ran out of his film, he offered to send me another box! I said I would reach out after I shot up a bunch of film that had been hanging around my freezer for too long. I felt sure that would take just a couple months.
That was two years ago. I still haven’t gotten back to Paul.
What happened is that I came upon a big sale on short-dated Kodak T-Max 100. I couldn’t pass up buying ten rolls.
Then someone gave me some bulk Kodak Panatomic-X. I didn’t want to fuss with bulk loading, so I sent it to Mike Eckman. He responded by sending me a couple bulk-loaded rolls of the stuff, plus a handful of rolls of specialty films I haven’t gotten around to shooting yet.
Then Kodachromeguy came into the entire frozen film inventory of a longtime photographer who had passed away. He sent me a whole bunch of 120 film, mostly Ilford FP4 Plus, but also some Kodak Vericolor III. He also sent me a roll of GAF Versapan in 35mm to try.
Then he excitedly pointed me to an eBay auction for a dozen rolls of Kodak Plus-X that had always been cold stored. I simply adore Plus-X! I won that auction at an astonishingly good price. Four rolls of Kodak Tri-X of similar vintage were part of the lot, as well.
And then, with the cost of color film rising like mad, I found three three-packs of Fujicolor 200 at my local big-box store at about four bucks a roll. I couldn’t turn that down! Then I came across a good sale on an expired ISO 200 Ferrania color film branded for the Kroger grocery-store chain. I bought six rolls.
Then Kodak announced their Gold 200 film would be produced in 120, and as soon as I could I pre-ordered a five pack.
In short, I have film coming out of my ears.
Most of this is my fault. The T-Max 100, Plus-X, Fujicolor 200, and Kroger 200 films were all bargains and I just can’t resist a bargain.
But I had such a great time shooting all of that film Paul sent me. I’d really like to do it again. Unfortunately, it’ll probably take me two more years to shoot all of this film I now have, to make room in the freezer for more!
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