Fortune favors the...old?
When Steph and I got married, I came up with the idea of visiting my parents once a week for dinner. As I imagine is common, my bedroom quickly was converted into another space for the family - in this case it was an office - and anything I left behind was hastily boxed up and kept away. Over the last 16 years, the weekly dinners are still a thing, but much of what had been boxed up has been lost to time. But a few weeks ago something amazing happened. We found rolls of film that been exposed at some point in the past and gone undeveloped for all this time. I took them home with me and decided I would have Palm Film Lab develop them. One roll in particular, the oldest one in fact, held up remarkably well. And that is really where this story starts.
Summer 1999
When I was a kid, my parents would take us on a summer road trip every year. They had fallen in love with RV'ing in the early 90's and made sure to take my siblings and me on a trip every year. Thanks to this, I've been to all but three states in the US. I didn't need the date burned into these to know when this was. But it helped. It was exactly a week before my 12th birthday, and we were at the Grand Canyon.
I had no choice in the selection of film dropped into the camera. But my father, a fantastic photographer who had been making photographs long before I was born, was a big fan of Kodak Gold. There were two rolls of Kodak Gold, one of Fujifilm Superia 400, and a Walgreens branded roll of 200 speed film (likely repackaged Kodak Gold). And thankfully the first that I had developed had these Grand Canyon photos.
The first two exposures were of the family posing in front of the Grand Canyon from a popular photo spot. The first one was clearly made by my father, who was not in the photo. The second, shown above, was made by a friendly stranger. It is amazing to me how trusting we are of people. "Excuse me? Would you mind taking this expensive item and using it precisely to photograph a moment you are not a part of? Thanks!" We do the same today, of course...even more wild as this is usually done with cellphones containing important information...but, it is wild to think back on a time when everyone knew how to operate a camera.
The amazing thing, for me is how much this roll validates the way I remember my childhood. I don't remember a time in which I didn't love making photographs. Even when I walked away from dedicated cameras and used my iPhone camera exclusively, I still loved making photos. Many of the photographs on this roll are clearly made by me. My sister, seen with the video camera above, was always more into video than still photography. We would often take over the documenting duties from my parents and they were happy to let us, able to enjoy the time unencumbered. These two above were made by me. My youngest sister would have been two years old when I made this one. My parents would have been two years younger than I am right now. Seeing them this age again is unexpectedly moving. They are still with me, but there are so many great memories from this time, especially summer vacations. Late night drives, s'mores around a campfire, roadside attractions, baseball games on radio. Some of my happiest memories were made on these summer road trips.
Finding Ansel Adams
What was immediately apparent was that this old roll of Kodak Gold was an ode to the landscape photograph. It really is impossible to know who made most of these photographs. My father is a great photographer, and I'm no slouch either. But the main reason why I believe I made the majority of these exposures is that these landscapes are sandwiched between exposures of my family that don't include me, indicating I was making those exposures as well.
Something that I saw at many of the National Parks that we visited was these sort of landscape photographs, many made by the legendary Ansel Adams. His name was one of the few that I knew as a 12 year old. His trilogy of instructional books were the first that I bought when I got back into photography in 2020 and his belief that photography can be used to preserve and affect change all at once is a powerful one that I subscribe to as well.
There is something powerful about the landscape photograph. For those that have a deep belief in a higher power, it is proof that there is a power beyond them. For those that don't share this belief, it is a reminder that there are things bigger and more permanent than ourselves. Landscapes like these move us. I remember the awe I felt when I finally saw the Grand Canyon for myself 26 years ago. That feeling returns when I see it photographed like this. There is majesty in the world, and it wasn't carved out by pick axe or dynamite. It is our duty to preserve it.
And amidst these feelings of awe about the natural world, there is another natural process that leaves me dumbfounded: that of the film negative.
Despite the fact that this roll sat in a canister 26 years after exposure and retained this level of detail after development is, in a word, amazing. I expected a bunch of mushy shadows, shifted colors, and non-existent contrast. And, if I'm being honest, some of that is present in the other rolls that I found along with this one, including the other Kodak Gold rolls. But something about this one left it unaffected. I don't believe in magic, or even chance. But it is hard to make an argument against it when the results are so beautiful. Whatever happened on July 11th, 1999, some magic was captured that allowed time to leave the film untouched by its decaying hand.
A Mastershot 26 years in the making
And grateful for that I am.
As I looked through the photos, there was one that I kept returning to. This photograph was the first I shared with my friends over at the Inglorious Leica Lovers. I thought it might be that I was looking at this exposure, and the roll at large, through rose tinted glasses. But the response I got from them was overwhelmingly positive. Likewise, I shared many of these on Reddit and the response was unlike any I've ever received. This first exposure in particular was the focus of many of the numerous comments I received.
My friend and fellow Inglorious admin, Matias, suggested I remove the date on the bottom of this photograph and submit it to LFI. I did just that. I added a very simple edit in Adobe Lightroom, nearly identical to the preset I have developed for modern Kodak Gold scans and submitted it.
A few days later I awake to two emails from LFI, one informing me that another landscape I had made just a week before had been selected for their Landscape gallery, the other informing me that this very photograph had been selected for their Leica Mastershot gallery.
It was my fourth Mastershot selection since I first started submitting last year, but as was pointed out by Oliver in the Inglorious group, this may very well be the Mastershot made by the youngest photographer in history. As funny as that may be, it is also something reassuring for me.
Since well before 1999, but certainly since July 11th of that year, I have been practicing art in various form. Whether it was drawing comics in school to appease my undiagnosed ADHD, slamming power chords on punk rock tunes, or making photographs with little cameras, the artistic expression of self is something I've felt a need to practice my entire life. It has been a life that, no matter how hard it has been, is a good life. Reflecting on these photos has brought back so many memories and brought out so many emotions, not the least of which are nostalgia and happiness.
If you find some undeveloped rolls, take a chance on them. Time may have been kind to them. Because sometimes time does stand still. Time travel is possible, my friends. But it isn't found in the digital sensors and SD cards that we tout today as the best and greatest. Film, that's where time travel is found.
All images © 2020-2025 David Ulloa Studio. All rights reserved.
