Expired Archives

This last December, I found three rolls of expired film tucked into the hem of my stocking, an unexpected surprise as I would later find out. I slowly used the rolls up over the course of three trips– one near Capitola in California, one during a college visit in the Los Angeles area, and one in Disneyland. Each trip was allotted its own roll, each distinguished by the brand (most of which I’d never heard of) and exposure amount (varying between 24 and 32 exposures). When taking the photos, I knew very little about what to expect; potentially, all of the photos could’ve been too overexposed, too underexposed, too grainy, too faded, the list goes on. All I was sure of was that they has been sitting in a freezer for over 2 years, meaning that there was a chance the film could still be salvaged; even so, the results were sure to be unpredictable.

When I received the pictures back (over 88 pictures!), I wasn’t exactly sure if I was thrilled or disappointed with the results. They were certainly unique, but my conflicted response made me take a step back and think about how conventionality and societal standards is often absorbed subconsciously, in turn influencing how much value I give to my work. As you’ve looked through the photos above, you can see blurred scenes, indistinct shapes, streaks of colored lights, the throb of taillights, hazy exposures, and even a hand accidentally caught in front of the shot. Whether these ‘mistakes’ were attributed to a cheap 35mm point and shoot camera or expired film, the point is there regardless: photography– especially film photography– doesn’t find beauty in perfection. I think it took me three rolls of expired film to figure out that sometimes a photo’s imperfections are what makes it perfect.

This realization made me think about how there’s been a rebirth of a culture that accepts and finds beauty in the unfiltered world around us. If you really think about it, the celebration of mistakes and imperfections in our lives has truly manifested itself more and more, even though it can sometimes be hard to recognize the good when the bad seems so overwhelmingly abundant. To name a few, our generation has fought for representation in the media and workplace, demanding a place where bodies of all shapes, sizes, and colors are celebrated as the norm, without using Photoshop to create an unrealistic version of beauty. In that same vein, we’ve also recently been more and more obsessed with vintage items and aesthetics– think the static sound of a record player or the grainy effect of a film camera. This generational shift genuinely cultivates and fosters a world where imperfections by their very nature are beautiful, a sentiment that is becoming increasingly more normalized as time goes on.

Maybe it took some expired film to show me that beauty really cannot fit into a box, a mindset that is a revival, a renaissance, and a rebirth– all at once.