Apart from taking photos with our digital camera, I have really got back into film recently – I’ve discovered the joy that is professional quality film and I bought a second hand Canon EOS 30 last year, which is a rather excellent film camera and a decided improvement on my Dad’s old Pentax SP1000 which I had previously used. Using great film like Fuji Velvia or different varieties of black and white film gives better colour and tonality than in digital format, and I can scan them in on my computer to get a digital version afterwards. I have many photos displayed on my account on Flickr taken with film – you can particularly notice the black and white ones and the ones taken with Velvia, which have such wonderful colour.

I took a roll of black and white film into Camera House in Canberra City (Civic), which is right near my work, the other week to have negatives developed. I normally go to another excellent photo shop a bit further down the mall, but it was raining and I didn’t feel like running through the rain.

I should have braved the rain.

The shop called me back an hour later to say they had accidentally put the B&W film through the colour development process, which had the effect of wiping my film – the negatives are almost completely clear. You can imagine how massively upset and angry I was about this. The people at the shop apologised, gave me a new film and offered to process it for free – which is something, but still left me feeling sour.

I got my next B&W roll developed to negatives at my usual place today (it looks great) and I was re-reminded of how disappointed I was about the loss of my previous negatives. I not only lost photos from our holiday to South Australia (taken on the way back between Nerrandra and Canberra) but also more photos than I thought of friends in Sydney. So, Mandy, Byron, Jess, André, Charmaine – I’ve lost my photos of you. Mind sitting for me again next time?