Feel The Glamour In Pink

 I've been playing with my Canon APS camera again but the next batch of film, some Kodak Advantix 200, didn't fare as well as the Fuji Nexia. As you can only get long expired film these days its a dwindling supply and the quality is hit and miss, but the consensus seems to be that the Kodak is less stable and more prone to colour shifts as the emulsions break down and experience exposure to background radiation. I've played with a few expired 35mm films, including some exotic emulsions that require obsolete processing, like the communist era Orwo Color films which still managed to produce images 40 years after their expiry date.  But this batch of Advantix was a jump in the dark. I knew absolutely nothing about the batch, its storage or anything helpful to guide me with exposure. There's a school of thought that says you should allow a stop for every decade but you will also find nerdy rants online telling you science says otherwise and that speed and storage matter more, and that if a film has been stored well, box speed is the way to go. The answer then seems to be bracket like mad. 

In the event I needn't have bothered.  This psychedelic batch of films came straight from Barbie World, and pink seemed to be the main theme with a healthy portion of powder blue thrown in for good measure. 

Oh dear. 

Thought actually, it was kind of cool, in a hot pink kind of way.  

What worked best with these pics was when the subject was a little but abstract, and one of them, Stratford bus station reflected in the train station windows, was an instant result that mirrored (see what I did there?) a picture I took of Sydney's Circular Quay and then spent hours in Photoshop and Lightroom to achieve exactly the same effect ready for an exhibition hanging. And here was the same result by accident without any work or effort. Man, I could actually have a life at this rate. 

Stratford, home to London's 2012 Olympic Park, underwent massive redevelopment ahead of the games and that's continued in the decade since with the area becoming a major draw for Londoners interested in the arts, sports and for living and working. So the area is peppered with public artworks which make great subjects for photography. Its also where I work so its a frequent stopping off point for me with my camera and combined with the colour shift with this film some interesting abstracts emerged from this shoot. One standout is the huge installation at the entrance to the bus and train station, and with the pink and red tinge contrasting with the artwork's green and yellow hues, I ended up with quite a shot. 

The Olympic Park is also home to landscaped gardens overlooking the River Lea and scattered between the stadium, velodrome and pool. Suitably enough, when I was shooting this film the red hot pokers were in full bloom and with this film's pink colour shift they look hotter than ever, proving that its not just abstracts that work with expired film. 

All in all this experiment seems to have worked well in the most unexpected way. I just need to find a subject for the remaining two films in the Kodak batch.