I’ve had this pack of film sitting around for god knows how long - probably since it was fresh, even. In the summer of 2019 I found it, slipped down behind some drawers at the back of the refrigerator. The box had been opened with the foil seal fully torn off at the top. I don’t remember doing that and have always been in the habit of keeping my packs sealed until I’m putting them into a camera, so I’m assuming that was the handiwork of a curious younger sibling (perhaps the odd placement within the fridge was, too?)
Not expecting much of anything from a long out of date pack of IP 600 that had been both unsealed and stored at an odd angle for an indeterminate amount of time, I made a mental note that I needed to “shoot this opened pack soon” to have any hopes of getting any images whatsoever. I then threw it into a ziploc bag labeled “UNSEALED” and filed it away, back into the fridge - laying flat on the shelf this time, though.
I did not shoot it soon, though. Every time I thought about taking the plunge and rolling the dice on what was probably going to be a dead pack, I opted for something a little safer - something I had more confidence would work - something more known and more comfortable. The pack sat in my fridge for another 3 years after it’s rediscovery - not getting any fresher and in my mind, surely sealing its fate. I picked it up and thought about using it many times but never could bring myself to do it, for some reason.
Last week, I was heading to a close friends house to shoot some photos for a project I’ve been working on, when I once again came across this withered, battle tested box of film from nearly 10 years ago, resting in the fridge. I picked it up and, after looking at the date stamped on the pack once again, figured it was finally time. “Let’s just get this over with”, I thought.
Once I got to the house, I felt like the most logical thing to do would be to see what we could squeeze out of this stuff before moving onto the other - safer - packs of film I’d brought with me. I popped it into the camera, and after explaining to my friend that we might have to try a few shots before we even get a partial image, it was finally zero hour. We set up the first shot and i fired it off.
Full spread.
We ended up using all 8 shots that night. This was the last one in the pack, taken at about 4 in the morning, standing on the roof of a house in Los Angeles. Every single photo had full chemical spread, and minimal pod striping, and more than acceptable contrast. There’s obviously a green shift but this has been my experience with pretty much every pack of Gen 2 IP film the last 5 or so years - I don’t feel like I could really ask for much more, and frankly, I don’t want to.
The pack of film which I had fully anticipated being a complete waste of time, for years on end, ended up being the only one I used that night - the Time Zero, 2009 600, packfilm and other options I’d brought stayed in the camera bag. It was this pack’s long awaited & well deserved time in the spotlight; a testament to keeping your film in cold storage, and, more poetically, to remembering the beauty of the outside chance.

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portrait, friends, night, california, flash

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