Tornadoes blew through nearby and took our power with them for a couple of days. I keep my film in a small fridge in my office, so when the ice in the freezer section melted, it soaked my large format film boxes. While disappointing, most of the film had been expired for years. Some of it was E6, and I have no chemicals to process that anyway.
Most of the boxes were already opened, so even though the remaining sheets were still in the interior plastic bags, I decided that it wasn’t worth the trouble of testing to see if the film was still usable. So I threw it all away.
Instead of feeling bad about not having that film, I was surprised to find myself feeling relieved. I could finally stop thinking about if and how I might shoot it. Was it even still good?
So now I’m looking sideways at my bags of oddball and expired 35mm film and wondering how I’d feel about getting rid of those, too. I have been going through the expired color rolls, and it’s been interesting, but color film doesn’t offer me much over nice digital files. I can’t make color prints in my darkroom, which is a big part of why I shoot film in the first place.
But the oddest thing that’s happened is that now I’m looking at my books, records, movies, cameras, RAW files, saved articles…everything. How much do I actually need? How would it feel to only have the stuff I actively use/love. You know, stuff that “sparks joy”.
I don’t want to do anything rash, but I kind of want to do something rash.