Recently, I was going through some old boxes from my storage room, and I found a bunch of old film negatives. I’d forgotten about these photos that I shot sometime in the early nineties, but as soon as I saw them again, the memory of that moment came back to me.
It was during one of my visits to my parents place in Penticton, probably some time in December. I’d decided to take a drive out to Summerland, where I grew up. It was a very cold and grey, dull kind of afternoon and I was driving my car along a scenic backroad where there was a lot of orchards. I remember feeling rather melancholy because I was there all by myself. Most of the friends I grew up with had moved away.
While I was driving, suddenly, amongst the dull, frozen grey of everything, I spotted this bright, vibrant golden apple, still clinging to the bare tree! And then I spotted more of them! I immediately pulled the car over to the side of the road and parked. I pulled my camera out of the trunk. I think it was my old Canon EF back then, but I can’t remember for sure. Luckily I had colour film loaded in the camera, and I shot a bunch of photos of the beautiful, frozen apples. As I was composing the shots, I remember hoping that the film would pick up this same wonderful vibrance that I was seeing with my own eyes. Finding those apples completely made my day.
When I had the film processed, I remember looking at the prints and thinking that the yellow-gold colour of the apples was relatively vibrant, but not quite how I’d hoped. It wasn’t a limitation of the film, it was the print. Most film processing shops back then would use auto colour/levels balancing resulting in somewhat homogenized looking prints. I didn’t have a darkroom back then, so I would usually get my prints from these common film labs. If I wanted something better, I had to get enlargements from the reputable labs that specialized in professional quality prints.
Today, nearly thirty years later, I’m so happy to have the technology to scan and finally display this photo exactly how I’d intended it to be seen, with all of it’s wonderful vibrance. For the record, these are straight scans, with no adjustments in photoshop. The Fuji Reala film all those years ago, truly did record the beautiful colours accurately, and the film hasn't faded at all.
Frozen golden apple. Summerland, BC.
Frozen Golden Apples. Summerland, BC.
Apple orchard in winter. Summerland, BC.