Shotska Reel

Shotska Reel

This is my first ever roll of 8mm shot in a £20 wind up Quartz from 1960s USSR, using long-expired Technopan film, also from the Soviet Union. No date on the packet but it must be 40+ years old! The can had to be opened with a stanley knife, and it was full of rust. I bucket-developed it myself in caffenol & hand scanned and edited all 2000 or so frames (!). The result is this: monochrome silver-blue layers of light, time and chemicals coming together - a near half-century in the making - forms emerging from the grain and sinking back into the darkness. I traced the chemical plant back - and this little dusty reel was made in Shotska in North Eastern Ukraine.