Film Rescue

Hello!

Today I received a delightful surprise in the mail today, from Indian Head, Saskatchewan. Since I haven't posted in a while, I thought this would be a good opportunity.

About a month and a half ago, I went to the Vancouver Camera Show and Swap Meet in Burnaby, where I bought a Canon 310XL for 20 bucks. Inside, unbeknownst to me at the time, was a little treasure: an exposed cartridge of Kodachrome 40!

I love looking at strangers' photographs, so finding the authentic, forgotten home film of someone else is a dream come true for me. However, the process for developing Kodachrome is dead as dead, so I wasn't sure where I could get my film developed. Fortunately the internet directed me to Film Rescue International, which not only specializes in developing old and forgotten films like mine, but is also based in Canada! Of course, with such poorly stored and long-expired film, there was no guarantee any image would be salvageable, and since the Kodachrome process is long gone, the film had to be processed in monochrome. But I'm way too curious to let that bother me.

So I mailed my cartridge away to Indian Head, whose name alone has a dreamy, mythical quality to it. What better place for a business that specializes in preserving and rescuing relics of the past than a town with a name with such weight behind it, in terms of the collective memory of Canada.

And today I finally got to see what my camera saw, god knows how long ago.

As expected, the film is foggy and it's difficult to see much of a picture. However, what is visible was well worth the wait: a wedding dress, an infant, a cake, and so many faces and smiles. And in the silhouettes, which are probably the result of an accidental underexposure, you can hardly see anything at all. However, the body language of the women speaks volumes. I love images like these because they remind me of what it means to be a person.

We are always holding on to our present, enjoying it, suffering it, or maybe just existing. Of course, as you know, these moments always slip away and become our memories, shaping us into the people we are, and the people we will be. Photographs are like magic, crystallizing a bit of these memories. For you, and for anyone else who might happen upon them...

Alec, my partner, to whom I am getting married in less than two months, watched this footage of a stranger's wedding and said, "They're like ghosts."

Here's the film.





xoxo
C.