One of the pleasures of film photography is the extended period of excited anticipation that results from delayed gratification. It was once those revelatory steps from exposure through processing and a contact sheet to final print; now more likely the wait for a set of prints to arrive from Ilford. The shortest delay a few hours, the longest maybe a week to 10 days; and always the hope for something that is worth the wait.
I’m using film for the Beechwoods project and decided revisit old times by using a Nikon FM2. I dug the camera out of a tatty old Billingham bag and was surprised to discover that there was a film, HP5, in it with several exposed frames. I knew neither when I last used it nor what I had been photographing. Well, Ilford has done the processing and I now have seven pictures of a match at Fenners, the University of Cambridge cricket ground. I can date them to May 2000 through other films on file, the University was playing Derbyshire; I took them to illustrate an article in a regional magazine. The camera and film seem to have survived remarkably well – the recent exposures are quite acceptable.
Whatever the pleasures of delayed gratification 17 years is a stretch too far – and these pictures weren’t worth the wait.
Photo: Fenners, Cambridge, May 2000
I may have to look at my film camera to see if there’s an unexposed film in it! Exciting to find out what you had on your film, even if 16 years later. That is some deferred gratification!
Better late than never – applies to so many things!