michael sturgess

It’s January, a month of cold, wet and grey miserable days.
Occasionally the sun appears for an all to brief moment and then it’s back to the grey.
But amazingly on the 17th; sunshine for almost the whole day!
I decided that this was the day to shoot some of the rolls of expired film that have been sitting in my film box for months, possibly years.
I decided to travel light as although the sun would be out it would also be cold.
The cameras I picked were the Holga 120GN and the Black Slim Devil. Both cameras are mainly made of plastic and both are light and very simple to use – wind on and click.
The films I used were Fuji Astia 100F (expired in 2003) in the Holga and Agfa CT Precisa 100 (expired in 2018) in the BSD. On Saturday evening I posted a tweet of my plans for Sunday morning.

I received lots of lovely replies but with Twitter, as ever, there’s always one person that knows best and who wants to spoil your fun.

I didn’t reply to the shitpile – I don’t know him, I don’t follow him on Twitter and he doesn’t follow me, but I was a tiny bit annoyed so I tweeted his response to me shooting expired film in plastic cameras. Him being a shitpile wasn’t going to spoil my night or my plans on Sunday morning. I switched my phone off and went to bed.
Sunday morning, I turn my phone on and . . . loads of messages and replies telling me to ignore the shitpile and enjoy my day.
So off I went bright and early and had fun with my plastic cameras and expired film. I walked along the River Thames and then into the City.
The Fuji Astia had a magenta tint due to its age and the backing paper also came through on the images but I’m really happy with the results. Here are some of the images.

“Expired film is better than expired ideology” – David S Allen.

All text and images © Michael Sturgess 2020. All Rights Reserved.

London, UK. January 2020.

A pinhole camera film swap with Moni Smith.
I shot my photos around the Barbican Centre in London and then sent the roll off to Moni.
Moni shot her photos around Seaside, Oregon.

The results are magic!

All text and images © Moni Smith & Michael Sturgess 2019. All Rights Reserved.

Barbican Centre, London, UK. 2019.
Seaside, Oregon, USA. 2019.

A friend gave me a roll of CineStill 800T to shoot sometime last year. After putting it in the fridge, I then forgot that I had it. In September I went on an evening photowalk. I took along the CineStill 800T but didn’t get around to shooting it, so back in the fridge it went.

Now with the nights getting darker I thought it would be a good opportunity to shoot the CineStill 800T.
I was meeting a friend in the City for after work drinks so suggested that I’d shoot a roll of film before we head for the pub. We walked around the Barbican Centre and the surrounding area for about an hour. The roll shot, it was time for the pub.

By the time I got home a few beers had been partaken. I decided that this would be a good time to rewind the film back and get it ready for sending to a lab for processing. I forgot to press the rewind release button on the camera so I snapped it off the film cassette and I may have popped the back of the camera open to double check if the film had snapped off.
The following day with the aid of a clear head, dark bag, sticky tape and an empty film cassette I managed to re-roll the film on to the empty cassette.

Here are the results.

All text and images © Michael Sturgess 2018. All Rights Reserved.

City of London. London, UK. November 2018.

All text and images © Michael Sturgess 2018. All Rights Reserved.

London. April 2018.

A wander around Shoreditch, London.

All text and images © Michael Sturgess 2018. All Rights Reserved.

Shoreditch, London. June 2018.

All text and images © Michael Sturgess 2018. All Rights Reserved.

St Bride’s Church, City of London, London. July 2018.

Taken on World Wide Pinhole Day 2018.

All text and images © Michael Sturgess 2018. All Rights Reserved.

St Geroge’s Park, London. UK. April 2018.

“Seeing double” is a photo zine produced by me.
A5 in size with 20 pages and only 25 printed.
All the photos were taken by me using the various film cameras I own.

I’m selling the zine for £5.50 (including postage UK) or £7.50 (including postage everywhere else) per copy.
If you would like to own one send me an email:
hello{at}michaelsturgess.com or via direct message on Twitter or Instagram.

All text and images © Michael Sturgess 2018. All Rights Reserved.

All text and images © Michael Sturgess 2018. All Rights Reserved.
London, UK. February 2018.

Rugby in Regent’s Park.

All text and images © Michael Sturgess 2018. All Rights Reserved.
London, UK. February 2018.