Epic fail OR it's not a photograph until it's printed or I went to Ireland and got one photo and not with the super heavy film camera I dragged with me
If at first you don’t succeed, fail. And fail again.
- John Hall / King Missile
June 20, 2025 - The negative roll of the Claregalway Friary with no images!!!
People ask, genuinely, sincerely, “did you get any good photos?”
“I don’t know,” I reply, genuinely, sincerely.
Until the photograph is printed, I have no idea whether it’s a good photo. Until the photograph is printed, there are so many things that can keep the photo from ever being seen.
I have successfully, easily even, loaded 120 negative rolls onto developing reels. This roll of images I shot in May 2025 at the Claregalway Friary did not load easily in my developing bag. The developing bag is a good idea that I don’t want to ever use again. The truth is, I simply don’t have enough experience loading 120 film to reels to also have to wrestle the developing bag.
So, I lost the only film photos that I was super excited to develop from our trip to Ireland and I’m deflated. And so it goes.
When I’m shooting film, I take a photo of the camera and viewfinder once I have the composition and settings set so that I have a timestamp and know the settings for future reference. On this morning, May 10, 2025, I woke around 4:45am to meet the sunrise which, for literally two minutes (not enough time to set up the Mamiya) was the lovliest pink and then the clouds rolled in but I still maybe got a couple of ok shots with the digital camera (Canon R5 / 24-70L lens).
I ordered some photographic blackout material that I will use to attach to the inside of our pantry door and I have a red, darkroom safe light that I can install in there and I’ll set up a small table and be able to have space to load the rest of the reels from our trip and a few that I want to process of the dancing light in the tunnel…which, at this point, I’m not sure whether these will ever see the light of day…as photographs rather than fully exposed negatives. And so it goes.
