Kodak Gold 200

Let’s talk about the most unfortunate roll of them all. The Kodak Gold 200 was the last roll I shot during this trip.Technically, I started another roll right at the end of my time at Enchanted Rock, but I’ll get to that later.

I mentioned it briefly during the Enchanted Rock post how the shutter curtain appeared to be acting up. Looking at this collage really brings to light just how much it affected this roll in particular. A full 6 pictures were affected though only a couple were affected to the point of ruining the picture entirely. Now this wouldn’t necessarily matter as much, but this roll of Kodak Gold only had 24 exposures in comparison to the 36 most rolls have. This means that instead of only affecting 1/6 of a roll, 6 pictures is now 1/4 of the roll which is a significant difference.

That said, I took a lot of kind of just pointless and throwaway pictures on this roll. For example, I was stuck behind a makeshift traffic light for like 15 minutes and ended up taking 3 pictures because I was bored more than anything else. Thankfully, or perhaps not, 2 of those ended up affected by the above issue. But yea, this is a bit of an unfortunate roll overall.

In comparing it, this film has the most vibrant colors I’ve seen thus far, bordering a bit on oversaturated personally. Even with that, I also think this roll has some of my favorite pictures of the trip though.

While I intentionally skipped talking about Fredericksburg, I like how both pictures I took while I was in Fredericksburg turned out. They’re the two in the bottom left corner. Yes, I’d like the top picture to not be affected by the issue I stated above. But, I like how it feels, the kind of dusty look works, even if it wasn’t fully intentional. It really gives off that fake old timey feeling Fredericksburg seems to revel in, the illusion broken by the plastic traffic barriers.

The Fredericksburg Honey Company picture below that might be my favorite picture of the trip. While it doesn’t look special, I kind of love its almost commerical aspect. The sunset in the right side and the reasonably even lighting. The center focused tree with the sign to the far left. It feels like the type of picture you might see in a travel magazine featuring Fredericksburg with an article about Fredericksburg Honey Company. I remember at the time going, I want to take this picture and I need to stand exactly here to get the picture I want. And that’s what happened. It’s not a particularly special picture in terms of content, but in a lot of ways that’s exactly what I was going for, a picture that blends in and is in its own way unremarkable.

Besides color, this is also a really clear film. The film grain is really small and it doesn’t seem to impart a lot of grain in general.

All told though I don’t think I’ll shoot it again. 24 exposures feels a bit too limiting (Kodak Gold is also sold in 36 exposure rolls, confusingly) and honestly I don’t entirely appreciate the colors. In general they work, but they’re a bit too strong for me and not in a good way. It isn’t like the Lomography 400 with its really neon-y fun coloring. This just feels like a punched up, oversaturated reality and I could do with a bit less of that in my life.