You know what’s fun? Photography. You know what I like about photography? Sharing it. Sharing prints, drinks or talks, or whatever else you might want to share. And speaking of sharing, I’m rather happy to share this small experiment, on EMULSIVE nonetheless, which might very well be the best place to share film-related stuff on these worldwide webs of ours.
Also, without @emulsive, these images would not have ever been shot.
Let’s jump back in time, shall we? A few years back (2018), I entered my first edition of EMULSIVE Secret Santa. And it was awesome. Last year’s partner kindly took me up on my “a shot roll of film to swap” wish list item, and here are a few of the results 🙂
The roll of 35mm Fuji Pro 400H (now a collector’s item, right?) was shot first by Tom Brouns while walking his dogs over in Albany, California, and then by yours truly 5,800 miles / 9,300 km away in Lyon, France.
Looking back on this festive experiment, I wish I had thought about marking the first frame on the film to avoid the slight misalignment between the exposures. It works on some photos, but most would have been better off without it.
Techwise, Tom used a Nikon F100, and I used my trusty Voigtlander Bessa R2 (with the Color-Skopar 35mm f/2.5 I believe). No SLR vs rangefinder battle here just two classic cameras working hand in hand to create images.
Bessa R2 
Nikon F100
Tom exposed the roll as usual, at box speed, and I followed along taking care of shooting the roll pushed 1 stop at EI 800. It was developed as normal by Gris Souris, a local lab of Lyon, France.
There’s not much technical difficulty to swapping film in retrospect, and our highly improvised experiment turned out good! Just remember to mark the first frame using a sharpie or similar, outlining the edge of the frame while loading the film for the next shooter to be able to align their first frame accordingly, and remember that the film will be exposed (at least) twice. So to avoid overexposure, you might want to adjust your metering to compensate for this (even if color negative film can more than take it). Think 1 or 2 stops less light than the desired speed for every additional exposure.
Overall, this was a really fun little game. I had been thinking about trying film swap for ages but never took the jump. I’m really happy Tom played along! Here’s to sharing 🍻!
~ Virgil
Submit your 5 Frames… today
Get your own 5 Frames featured by submitting your article using this form or by sending an email via the contact link at the top of the page.
Share your knowledge, story or project
The transfer of knowledge across the film photography community is the heart of EMULSIVE. You can add your support by contributing your thoughts, work, experiences and ideas to inspire the hundreds of thousands of people who read these pages each month. Check out the submission guide here.
If you like what you’re reading you can also help this passion project by heading over to the EMULSIVE Patreon page and contributing as little as a dollar a month. There’s also print and apparel over at Society 6, currently showcasing over two dozen t-shirt designs and over a dozen unique photographs available for purchase.
3 responses to “5 (6) frames… Of double exposures with my EMULSIVE Santa on Fuji Pro 400H”
I pulled up the image again today of the benches and flowers. I’d love to see a cropped version where the left and right sides were clipped off leaving the center image full frame. Just a beautiful picture with so much depth.
Browsing Emulsive the past year has resulted in me appreciating double exposures. I never really gave it a second thought.
I adore photo four ( park benches and flowers ). Great job, very interesting to look at.
Cheers,
Brad
Great idea, I read about film swaps before.
I would like do to the same.
If anybody would join me, please contact me.