Damaged Film, or Cool Pictures?

Is this a "lost" image?

Recently I took a trip to Glacier National Park with some of my closer Couchsurfing friends and as any self-respecting experimental-analog photographer, I brought my two Holgas. One was fitted with the usual 120mm film, and the second one was fitted with a 35mm roll (in the near-ish future I will dedicate a blog post about how to do this with an average Holga). It's always good to have handy two analog cameras in case what happened to me, happens to you! 

So I was on the road when I fitted in my 120mm film roll into my Holga and had forgotten to bring black tape, or any tape for that matter, with me. When you are using a "toy" camera such as a Holga, it is virtually REQUIRED for you to tape up the sides and openings that are potential "catastrophe makers" and sources of light leaks. In my usual good practice, I always tape up the back of my camera so that not only is it taped shut, but also light-leak proof.  However, I decided to risk it this time and just went with the usual Holga "lock" (if it can be called that) and prayed for the best. Everything went fine, I took pictures of amazing landscapes and was having the time of my life for that week up in the Rocky Mountains surrounded by melting glaciers. Until the last day of the trip, I was unpacking my backpack and picked out my Holga to realize to my dismay that the "lock" had unlocked and the back was cracked open. When I saw this, my first words were... (substitute "p's" for "t's" here) "ship, ship, ship..." amongst other random objects such as "puck," and "trap"...

A week later, when I went over to my Chicago Lomography store I gave the shop owner my roll honestly expecting the worst (lost roll). I was comforted, however, when she told me they'd give me a free roll of film (or something like that) if my film got messed up. So went ahead and sent it out. To my surprise, when the roll came back to me developed, the pictures were there! Yes, I was right, light leaked and did its damage. But, man, it was some pretty cool damage. So I took the digitalized pictures and tweaked their contrast/saturation a little bit on my iPad and got the following pics. See for yourself!

View From Slide Lake (Lovingly Called "V" Lake)

Grinnell Glacier Melting (This one I added some color with an extra filter)

Glacier Count Down

The Group

Yours Truly

So there you have it. That's the beauty of experimental photography... it's experimental! Errors, horrors, and all of the above are mere opportunities to push your creativity in new directions and discover new styles. So never ever say you've "lost" a pic or two because of light leaks, etc. See this as an opportunity to make it work and enjoy the results!