{"id":130594,"date":"2025-11-09T15:46:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T15:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/130594\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T15:46:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T15:46:13","slug":"this-photographer-successfully-shot-82-year-old-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/130594\/","title":{"rendered":"This Photographer Successfully Shot 82-Year-Old Film"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photographer Nick LoPresti<\/a> loves film. As his YouTube channel shows<\/a>, his adoration for the medium often manifests in \u201csilly\u201d videos centered on wild, ambitious projects. LoPresti\u2019s latest video demonstrates the intersection of his passion for analog photography and his willingness to embrace any challenge. LoPresti, perhaps against his better judgment, shot on 82-year-old film. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis project was a follow-up to last year\u2019s Halloween video where I shot some Kodak Super XX that expired in 1952,\u201d LoPresti tells PetaPixel of his motivations to take on this project. \u201cThat video is the highest performing piece on my channel, so after my Instagram friend, Ivan Aguiar<\/a>, sent me the eBay listing for this fluorographic film, I knew I had to try it and bottle some more lightning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo yeah, it was also for the views. YouTube seems to love it when us content people do stupid pointless things like this,\u201d LoPresti adds. <\/p>\n

Shooting on expired film is not always too tricky, as photographers make a few adjustments to their exposure and maybe \u201coverexpose\u201d by a stop or two. However, LoPresti didn\u2019t have film that expired in 2015 or even 2005. No, LoPresti\u2019s film, Kodak Eastman Flurographic X-ray Film, expired in 1946, one year after the end of World War II. The film was made in 1943 for the Army and used in X-ray machines to screen soldiers for tuberculosis. <\/p>\n

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The fact it was X-ray film only added to the challenge, as it doesn\u2019t come with any instructions for typical photographic applications like what LoPresti wanted to do. It also wasn\u2019t spooled for a camera, so LoPresti had to overcome that as well, but compared to other issues he encountered, this was no problem for a seasoned film vet like LoPresti. <\/p>\n

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\u201cI like to find the limits of whatever I\u2019m doing,\u201d LoPresti says. \u201cI become obsessive, to a fault. So much so that it\u2019s to the detriment of all other facets in life. I can\u2019t really focus on more than one thing at a time\u2026 bills, client proofs, answering texts, it all falls off until I reach some sort of break in the action.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The much bigger problem was just how darn old the film is. 82 years is an awful long time. In the years since LoPresti\u2019s X-ray film expired, man walked on the Moon, the Berlin Wall was built and then dismantled, the internet was invented, and, well, we all know how much photography has changed since the 1940s. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe testing itself was frustrating, and not just due to the early disappointments,\u201d the photographer tells PetaPixel. \u201cI hate doing the same thing twice, forcing myself to change one variable at a time to dial in the proper processing procedures was very tedious. I guess the hardest thing was trying to stay scientific about it. Last year, with the Super XX, I kind of just wasted a lot of film changing all the variables at once.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AISO 0.2 \"AISO 0.2 \"AISO 0.4 \"GrainyISO 1.6 \"BlackISO 1.6
\n \"AISO 1.6 <\/p>\n

Given the age of the film, LoPresti had to extensively experiment to determine by how much he needed to overexpose his old film, which turned out to be around ISO 1, depending on his precise workflow. Different approaches worked better at different ISO speeds, ranging from ISO 0.2 to ISO 1.6. <\/p>\n

With the appropriate ISO speed determined, LoPresti still had to figure out how to develop the film, which proved the highest hurdle of all in the project and required him to draw on every bit of his extensive expertise and experience. <\/p>\n

However, as shown in the video at the top and with the images LoPresti shared with PetaPixel from the project, he did. He successfully shot and developed 82-year-old expired film. What an incredible achievement, but as LoPresti puts it, \u201cI get a bit obsessive.\u201d<\/p>\n

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LoPresti says he\u2019s going to turn his obsessive nature toward \u201csome more podcasts to feed the insatiable social media machine,\u201d but he\u2019s especially looking forward to \u201cfollowing in the footsteps of Arthur \u2018Weegee\u2019 Felig and Kohei Yoshiyuki to make some incognito infrared flash images. Only problem is I think I need to abandon analog to get the results I\u2019m after. [The] Rollei IR400 ain\u2019t that IR sensitive.\u201d <\/p>\n

LoPresti is also keen to get his hands on even older film. <\/p>\n

\u2028\u201dIf anyone reading this has some old film, and not enough time to do it themselves, send it my way and I\u2019ll try to make another viral expired film YouTube video all about it.\u201d <\/p>\n

Image credits: Nick LoPresti (YouTube<\/a>, LoPro<\/a>, Instagram<\/a>) <\/p>\n