Lovely little film surprises

I only waited a little over one week for three rolls of film to be developed, which in the scheme of things is so completely unimportant. I am not a patient waiter, however (is anyone?). I get a little obsessed about waiting. In fact, when I sent my rolls of film across the country just over a week ago, I became fairly obsessed with tracking the package.

I sent it from Michigan on Monday and it landed in California on Wednesday. It then went to four different cities before it started to circle back through these cities again, at which point a notice popped up on the tracking site saying there was a “delivery exception.”

Panic!

Were my precious rolls of film ripped from their prepaid envelope, rolling around individually in the backs of several different USPS trucks, now never to reach their destination?! Heartbroken, I prepared for exactly this. I promised myself that next time I shipped film, I’d drop a small piece of paper, maybe even a few dollar bills, into each canister with my name and address. Some wonderful person would find this and lovingly send my film back to me and I’d start the scary process of sending it for developing once again, maybe even drive it to its destination myself. In the meantime, I emailed USPS and hoped for the best, which of course occurred the very next morning when my envelope, intact, was delivered to the processor.

But by then it was the weekend, so more waiting.

Then today (Tuesday), the email arrived with news that my film was developed and scanned and images were ready for me to download. Hurrah! Prosecco for everyone! (Yes, I really am this excited.)

Okay, maybe not everyone gets giddy over these things. But thank you to the neighbor who discarded the toilet, and to the other neighbor who had the foresight to fill it with lilacs.

There was also a roll of Ilford HP5 400 ISO shot on the Pentax, which I was just as excited about, but seemed a little extra grainy. I’m still learning, so there’s that.

But then there was also this:

The new (to me) half frame camera, one of the first models of the Olympus PEN. Good lord, the camera itself is cute. And the images, oh yes, yes, yes. You can keep them in twos, or threes, or however many you want depending on how you cut the film. Or you can make individual images. Oh, the possibilities. And the lovely surprise of not quite knowing what you’re going to get back. That’s what film does. At least for me.

Is it just me? Or is this not awesome?

The camera could probably use a cleaning, but that isn’t stopping me from using it. Now that I know it works and my guestimates (and occasional light meter app use) weren’t too off (there’s nothing automatic here), I’m feeling a little more confident about it. I’ll get it to a camera repair shop when I feel like I can take a break from it. Which I can’t right now. Because I love it.

Did I mention how cute it is?

Sigh. I’m smitten. I guess I better get used to waiting.

(Edited because I inadvertently lied about the film I used. It was Portra 400 for the color roll, not Ektar 100 as originally stated. And I didn’t mention it, but the film I used in the PEN was T-Max 100. I should write these things down. Really.)

Save