Black and white film photo of flooded lake edge. A small stand of dead treetrunks pokes out of the water on the right side. There is a large light leak down the centre of the picture.

Lake George exposed.

Camera: Canon AE-1. Film stock: Ilford HP4

This is my second offering of light leak exposed film after attempting to replace the seals on my Canon AE1.

Such a shame. I really like the desolate composition of this photo (and the one below). Even without the light leaks…I got the exposure was all wrong.

You have a lot more responsibility to the photo when shooting film. A lot more accountability.

If I had my Fujifilm digital with me I would have sprayed off a blunderbuss of shots at different settings and compositions…and chimped1 and corrected and gone home and opened my laptop and post-productioned a pretty decent picture.

And yet. I have, I think, accidentally captured a feeling of place that would not be present in a ‘perfect’ photo.
These shots have an almost tintype other worldly feel.

Pictures you might find on a strip of old negatives found in a mysterious battered old cardboard box retrieved from the darkest corner of a derelict attic. And you would wonder… who took this? Where was this?

  1. Chimping is a colloquial term used when shooting with a digital camera that describes the (bad) habit of continually checking every photo on the camera display immediately after the shot. ↩︎

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One response to “Lake George exposed.”

  1. I love this shot, the light leak make it even more authentic horror film like. No way to replicate this look on digital exactly. I shoot now and then with my Canon AE-1 and has the same light leaks, I replaced the seals from Amazon and it’s been great since, love what you’ve been getting from the Ilford.

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