Yesterday afternoon I was on my way home when I took the last frame on the roll of film in my M6. When I started to rewind the film I didn’t have the release lever pushed all the way over and as I turned the rewind knob, I pulled the film off of the spindle in the film cartridge. When I got home I grabbed an empty film canister and headed to a closet. I had to get under a blanket to be sure no light was getting through, and then pull the film out to my camera and roll it so I could put it in the canister. Hopefully I managed to keep the film from being exposed and the lab can still process this roll for me. There’s some stuff from our trip to Florida for Christmas that I don’t want to lose.
I haven’t done this for years. It’s a mistake that everyone make once in a while though. Frankly, I’m surprised that I haven’t done it a few other times in this past year that I went back to shooting predominantly film for my own work. As I was reloading a new roll I realized that there is probably a whole generation of photographers who have never and will never have this happen to them. It’s a little sad to me. But then I have very little experience using a view camera, and absolutely no experience exposing glass plates, tintypes or daguerreotypes so photographers from older generations could muse about the sadness in that I suppose.
In any case, happy new year.