Images shot on Ilford Delta 100 in the Yashica Electro 35 GSN
Taken at face value, the ten photographs you see on this post are just a little set of images from Skegness pier. Some are of the pier itself, some of the beach below, and a couple are looking out to sea too.
But they represent and demonstrate something else too. That when you’ve got through most of your roll of film and it can be tempting to take some throwaway shots just to get it finished, you can always still make something from the last few exposures on it.
That’s pretty much what I did here, with most of this Ilford Delta 100 having already been shot elsewhere.
It’s nice that they turned out not bad, in my opinion, and can be a good example of not just throwing these final frames away on careless and mindless snapshots.
How I ended up with these shots to shoot in Skegness
To give this thing more context, allow me to set the scene of why I was on Skegness pier with ten shots left on a roll of Ilford Delta 100.
A week earlier, I’d taken the Yashica Electro and shot most of this roll among the ruins of Roche Abbey, which isn’t too far a drive from my village.
I’d gone up there with nothing else really on my mind for this particular roll of film, and would have been okay shooting it all there that day. I had no reason to save any of it for anything else.
A week after Roche Abbey, I was planning a little weekend in Skegness, and I decided I wanted to document things in colour and with the Lomo LC-Wide. That was a plan that was fulfilled by shooting two rolls of Lomography Color Negative 800 around the town in a big day and night series (that I’m yet to get around to publishing).
I also took the Yashica Electro with me though, with one objective. To finish off the roll of Ilford Delta 100. I didn’t know exactly what I’d be shooting to finish it off, but I thought it likely I’d find something worthwhile.
It was only once I was up on the pier and shooting with the LC-Wide that I thought this would be a good spot for a little monochrome mini-set of images too. In other words, ideal for finishing this roll.
So that’s what I did. Shot these ten photographs, and then put my Yashica Electro away for the rest of the weekend to focus on the colour LC-Wide shots.
How many shots is too many to be called ‘last few’?
Before we go on, I do want to acknowledge that ~10 shots is kind of quite a few to be talking about merely finishing off the last few on your roll. Just mentioning this before someone else does.
I suppose it’s different if you only have two or three left. Yes, maybe use them on some nice portraits or candid shots of your pet or kids or something. They’ll be priceless in the future.
But the sentiment remains the same, and we will get into doing something with just two remaining frames later as well.
Ten is a lot different to two though, and there is a line somewhere between them where you have too many to be wasting them willy-nilly. Maybe for me that line is at five. That’s enough for a short blog post on here.
In fact, those five images were perhaps a better illustration of the point I’m making here. Because ten? That’s almost 1/3 of a standard roll of film, and rolls aren’t cheap anymore.
What it means to ‘make the most of’ the last shots of your roll
When I say ‘make the most of’ the last few shots on your roll of film, please know that I mean in whatever way is meaningful to you.
Photographs of anything can and will have their own merit. This isn’t about preaching about the subject matter in a way that says this is worth shooting but that is just a throwaway snapshot.
It’s about nudging you to think about what is important to you and to use the last of your roll of film on something that fits that bill. You can shoot whatever you want. I just think it’s a shame to do it mindlessly when you could be mindful of what you’re going to end up with instead.
Say you have ten exposures left like I did here. You don’t need to go anywhere to use them. You might actually want to shoot ten handsome portraits of your dog or cat. Or maybe you have flowers in your house and want ten beautifully lit, still-life shots of them. Knock yourself out.
My point is to put a little effort in to make sure your mini-set is something that has a bit more value – whatever that means to you – than what would come from a more of a that’ll do… click… that’ll do… click… that’ll do… click… kind of process.
Because if that’s the way you go about using up the end of your roll, what are you ever going to do with the results you get?
I could have walked around Skegness and taken ten monochrome photographs spread across the whole day that didn’t really relate to each other. But I thought it better to do them all on the pier, and in a short space of time.
Because then, whatever anyone thinks of the quality of them, terrible or merely passable, they are all at least held together by the location. I can always present them or look at them as ten photographs from and of the pier.
You can do something with as few as two
Yes, I had ten exposures to use up here, and that’s enough to do a mini-set, a portrait of something, or a story from somewhere.
But really, as we already alluded to, just two is enough to do something intentional with as you finish your roll of film.
I’m talking diptychs. Two images that work as a pair. And you’ve a better chance of them matching well if you shoot them deliberately to do that.
I’ve played around with diptychs myself, like when I did a whole roll of them in Manchester.
Don’t stop at two, though. You’ve got triptychs, quadriptychs, pentaptychs, hexaptychs… I’m no art expert but I think anything above that and we’re just calling them polyptychs.
The point, as it’s been throughout this whole blog post, is to produce something greater than the sum of its parts.
Those -tychs do that, a mini-set like these from Skegness pier does, and thoughtful portraits of your furry friends will too.
My point is that your roll of film isn’t over until it’s over, and you can always make something worthwhile from the last few exposures on it, no matter how few they are.
If you liked that encouragement to make the most of the last few shots from your roll and want more blog posts illustrated with film photography, why not have a look at some of these:
And if you think others will find this post worth a read, help them find it by giving it a share 😀
