The whole roll #1

The roll, the whole roll and nothing but the roll.

Oct 31, 2025

I’ve been photographing analog personal work for around four years. Like with all things (for me, probably not for you), I thought analog was hard. Specifically, too hard for me. But I mentioned that self-doubt to my dad (journalist with analog photographic experience) who promptly diagnosed the problem as being my camera. Essentially, it didn’t work.

He dusted off his old Nikon FM and let me loose on it.

Film is expensive and I find it hard to spend money on “myself”, so it’s lucky that shooting film feels a bit like an addiction. Having a hungry camera (with no film in its little black plastic tummy) is an empty feeling.

“I’ll just buy one more roll for now so there’s something in it if I suddenly need to take a photo,” I think to myself.

And then, “I can’t have the camera sitting there, loaded up, not taking photos with it. What’s the point, then?”

Then…

“I’d better finish it off so I can develop it…”

Rinse (in developer, stop bath, fixer, water) and repeat.

Just one more roll…

There’s guilt as well. I know very well that film is not an inexpensive hobby. So, while we were buying vegetables from the “please eat me soon” basket, I was blowing 15 bucks for a roll, another 15 to have it developed and then 15 for a scan.

I made things “cheaper” by buying chemicals to do my own developing (read: getting Felix to do my developing while I stand there with a stopwatch shouting “agitate!” every 30 seconds") and getting a scanner to do my own scans.

I will say this: the expense is a great motivator to be careful and become better. Even so, Felix points out film photography is also akin to a gambling addiction. It feels so, so good to load the camera, to line up the shots, the press the wildly satisfying shutter, to roll the film back into the canister, to get negatives back from the lab, to scan them in and usually it even feels really good to see that scan.

It’s a real thrill.

There are 36 images in a roll, give or take, and Instagram allows 20 per post. It punishes landsape and makes mixing hard.

I’ve realised this is the best place to put my hard-won analog images, so I’ll be sending a little Substack post each time I get a new roll scanned.

These are from July this year, just three-and-a-half short months ago, but already a distant memory like a fever dream in this grey and orange Gothenburg autumn.

This roll was Ilford Kentmere Pan 400 developed in Kodak D-76, white vinegar stop bath and Ilford method rinse. Scanned on my Plustek 8100.

(~~Dis~~claimer: I do NOT use AI to write my posts, edit my images or reply to your comments.)

Two adults and a child in a boat. Analog, black and white and featuring light leaks. — Intense light leaks over my parents and Otto on the boat in Ulvesund.

More light leak than image, a black and white analog image of two adults and a child sitting in a boat. — I’d have left this out of the email were it not for my pledge to include the whole roll.

A black and white underexposed image of waves cresting in the wake of a boat. — Underexposed, leaking light but still, unfortunately, a photo I took.

A woman's hairy legs featuring analog light leaks in the bottom of a boat. — More light leaks and long live my hairy, hairy legs.

A man's hands hold up a smoothed oyster shell. — Felix holds a time- and current-smoothed oyster shell.

Looking out past a man's hair, hard-edged clouds dominate the sky and boats are visible in the ocean bay of Ulvesund on the west coast of Sweden. — Clouds, ocean and hair.

A hand points at a small stack of rocks on a beach. The owner of the hand is kneeling and you can see his knee and one of his feet. — My dad points at a small stack of rocks.

Black and white image of light through water on a sandy ocean floor. — The ocean floor. (A shallow part.)

A child swings in a plastic baby swing, laughing and hair flying. — These "belong together". Elsie in the baby swing in Birgitta's garden.

A hand plucks a bilberry from a bush. In the first frame, the fingers pull at the berry. In the next, the bush is swishing with low shutter speed after the berry is plucked. — Another obvious pair. Felix picks a bilberry (did you know that's what Swedish wild blueberries are actually called??? I learned recently.)

Lichen growing on twiggish branches in the Swedish forest. — Lichen growing on thin twiggish tree branches in the forest in Ulvesund.

Spiderweb in the forest. I still recall the wet patches I got on my knees while taking this photo.

A child's arm dressed in a too-big shirt sleeve reaches into the scene, poking a tree with a stick. — And without presenting this image with text, nobody would ever guess that Otto is only wearing my stop - extremely rolled up sleeves - because he got poop on his own shirt when poking at it with a stick. And what a loss that would be!

The accoutrements of a Swedish crayfish party. Backlit and smudged analog black and white image. — Backlit crayfish party scene.

Woman dressed in flowery silk dress, wearing a paper party hard adorned with pictures of crayfish, serving slices of Swedish Västerbotten pie at a Swedish crayfish party inside an old boatshed. — Taken by either Felix or my friend Liz. It is yours truly, serving a Västerbotten pie - a special Swedish cheese quiche one could consider a necessity at the classic crayfish party.

Past the back of a boy's head we see geese swimming in an ocean bay off the end of a floating dock and near a sailboat at anchor. — Otto observes the geese in the bay.

Past the back of the head of a boy wearing a paper party hat, geese swim in an ocean bay near a sailboat at anchor and near a floating dock. — It’s not impossible the geese observe Otto in return.

A man eats a crayfish claw with a crayfish-eating implement. In the background is an array of crayfish party accoutrements. — Isak pulls the meat from a crayfish claw using very specialised crayfish-eating cutlery.

A man is pushed from a floating dock in an ocean bay by a small gang of children. — Isak is pushed from the floating dock #1

A man has been pushed from a floating dock in an ocean bay by a small gang of children and is laughing with them. — Isak seems fine about it.

A woman wearing a cap reading "the soul of my soul" holds her baby - a cheerful child wearing a sunhat and sail-boat-adorned onesie. — Alma and Marlon look on, the sailboat bodice of the latter perfectly appropriate for his surroundings.

One child reclining on a chair by an ocean bay explains something to another child with serious mannerisms. Both children wear a towel. — Otto explains something to Elsie in great length and with great seriousness only undermined by the fact they’re both only wearing a towel.

Children's ocean-wet legs and feet poke out from under towels. The children sit on wooden furniture on the deck of a boathouse next to an ocean bay. — Feet for days.

A low shot of a child dressed in a towel in the doorway of a boathouse next to an ocean bay. — Elsie focuses on something. But what?

In-focus toe of a child who is reaching for her knee. — Oh good, focus on the toe. But that doesn’t answer the question. If this is “storytelling photography”, I will defend this as intrigue.

Swans in an ocean bay next to a floating dock. — But before we get to the closure, though, let’s have a quick swan-focused side-quest.

A child peels her bandaid off her knee, examining the blood underneath. — “Oh! A bloody bandaid! Excellent, I’m so glad I waited for that.”

A child pulls up her bandaid, examining what's underneath. — “Are we done with the bandaids yet?”

A boy picks his nose in a house, somehow making it look kind of beautiful. His sister sneaks in from left of camera, eating a peach. — Yes, we are! Now it’s time for nose-picking - but make it epic.

Boy picks his nose inside a house. — Ok, now less epic. This is really worth two frames, thank you.

A girl's fingers reach in from top of frame on a background of floorboards in pretty evening light. — “Oops, I accidentally pressed the shutter button.”

Girl grins at the camera. Black and white analog image. — Elsie grins at the camera. Way back when she had both top front teeth.

Water-pruned children's fingers. Her arm reaches in from camera-left. Shadows are long - it is evening. Against a background of floorboards. — The shot I was aiming for before, more or less. Note the prune fingers.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you! Feel free to share this wherever people who appreciate the rantings and images of an anti-AI luddite like myself.

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