Remember that time, a million years a month ago when 45 was sworn in as president and millions of women went out in the streets to march the next day? I mentioned in my post about it that I brought my film camera, an Olympus Trip, to my local march. I got over my shyness and fears and managed to take several portraits of my fellow marchers with their signs. I was so stoked.

A few weekends ago I decided to develop two rolls of film, the Women’s March roll, and a test roll from the wonderful Sprocket Rocket I received from the Emulsive Secret Santa.

Imagine my horror when I pulled the film out of the tank and it was blank. It felt like my heart sank and broke into a million pieces all at the same time.

After inquiring about what could have happened I realized the problem was that my developer failed. I mean, of course it failed. I’d been getting down to the end of  a bottle of Adonal that was at least two years old and, (this is the key red flag here) it was CRUNCHY. Why did I not throw it away when it started to get crunchy? I don’t know. Admittedly, it was crunchy for awhile and still working. But I guess developer can only be crunchy for so long before giving up the ghost. Which it did. But I lost a roll of important-to-me film in the process of learning this lesson.