Sometimes….
As the mom of Mr. Forrest Gump famously said: “Film photography was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”
You put your film in your camera, wind it, shoot it, and repeat. You don’t get to look at that magic window on the back of your camera after each shot to see if you get what you want. You have to finish the entire roll, rewind it back into the canister(35mm only,) and send it off to your lab for development and scanning, which can take up to three weeks here in Dublin, as I have come to learn. What comedy!
Finally you get that email with the scans, but by now, you’ve forgotten what film stock you sent in or any memorable shots you are expecting.
That’s when you open your box of chocolate. And sometimes, you’d find a surprise.
Many old film cameras have multiple exposure levers, which allows you to expose the same frame multiple times. My Leica M6 does not have that, and I am happy about it. I’ve seen great multiple exposure works, and I admire such artistic endeavours. But if I have that function readily available to me, I’m afraid I’d turn it into a gimmick, multiple exposure just for the sake of it.
However, sometimes, my roll gets stuck on the last frame, where I can keep pulling the film advance lever and expose the frame over and over again. It has happened twice, and I consider them happy accidents. I did not plan those shots in any way, but I am happy with the results. It’s like when you manage to squeeze a few more frames out of a roll, only they are all layered on to one photo. Here are the two photos:
Farewell, till we meet again!