Announcement: 2017 Expired Film Day contest winners!

“Open Door,” Dustin Veitch.

It’s been a wild ride for Expired Film Day this year, with a big and invasive move for HQ and more insanity. But we’ve finally managed to pull together a selection of winners — 17 in all — from this year’s 233 submissions (a 135 percent increase over 2016’s 99 submissions!

Expired Film Day 2017 was March 15 and participants had a month to submit up to three images for award consideration. Refresh yourself on all the categories and criteria here, if you need to. Winners will be contact at the email address provided with their submission to arrange delivery of prizes (so check those spam folders!).

The field was incredibly difficult to choose winners from, adding to the delays. But now, finally, here are, sorted by sponsor, the winners of the 2017 EFD contests:

Daniel J. Schneider
Prize: Mystery goodies from the camera closet!
Criteria: Best day-of Twitter or Instagram post: Share the best photo of your experience on March 15 participating in Expired Film Day. Include a short message along with a photo of your film, camera or subject. I’ll pick my favorite and get in touch with you. Be sure you include the #ExpiredFilmDay hashtag so I can find your posts!
Winner: Pierluigi Tolu
Comment: Showing that with a little perseverance and creativity anyone can squeeze in a bit of EFD fun on the Ides of March, Pierluigi shows us what he’s shooting and where he is in a succinct tweet that we can all relate to. The gorgeous view in that tiny, ancient viewfinder stirs my photo-wanderlust! — Daniel J. Schneider

ShootFilmCo
Prize: THREE Shoot Film Co. prize packs each worth up to $50, featuring goods from ShootFilmCo.com AND 1 roll of expired film.
Criteria: Winners will be picked based on: 1) Most creative use of color; 2) Most unusual composition; and 3) Best choice of subject matter in relation to the theme “expired.”
Winner, most creative use of color: Konkov Alexandr, And then it began to rain heavily…
Comment: The resulting purple color heavily lent to the mood and composition, and subject matter of the scene. It looks almost intentional and I feel that this is the most creative use of color. — Mike Padua

And then it began to rain heavily … (Konkov Alexandr)

Winner, most unusual composition: Edward Conde, Wheel Guard
Comment: As the saying goes–know the rules before you break them. What’s going on here? It’s not symmetrical. There’s no rule of thirds. What is excluded makes for a lot of abstraction. Whatever is going on, it works! — Mike Padua

Wheel Guard (Edward Conde)

Winner, best choice of subject matter in relation to the theme “expired”: Philip Constant, Reflections of a Carousel
Comment: The horse looks…deathly. The heavy grain adds some mystery and timelessness. Great work! — Mike Padua

Reflections of a Carousel (Philip Constant)

Old School Photo Lab
Prize: Two prizes, each consisting of two rolls of expired color negative film with free processing and scanning from OSPL.
Criteria: Any eye-catching image could win!
Winner, Poppers’ Choice: Takgyver, Girls and Kodak
Comment: Intriguing symmetry and has a certain mystery that’s enhanced by the imperfections of the film used. — Poppers

Girls and Kodak (Takgyver)

Winner, Lab Rats’ Choice: Mike Dillon, Double Cross: Another Bad Pun
Comment: Luck’s hand in this photo was very helpful. Spooky and clever. You have to keep looking at it to see all the play going on. Strong verticals and muted colors work to draw the eye in. — The Lab Rats

Double Cross: Another Bad Pun (Mike Dillon)

EMULSIVE
Prize: Five rolls of mystery expired film!
Criteria: The Pusherman Award — instead of overexposing your old film, overdevelop it! Multiply the age of the film by the number of stops you push to determine your Pusherman Factor. Example: 50-year-old film, pushed 3 stops, has a Pusherman Factor af 150. Highest Pusherman Factor with a usable result wins!
Winner: Steve Novosel, Rain Through The Fog
Comment: Congratulations to Steve for taking the risk and pushing this old film in the face of total failure. The numbers have been crunched by the Expired Film Day research team (a 300 lb. giant sloth with an abacus), and we’re getting an estimated Pusherman factor of 171.5! What a lovely result and totally worth the risk. — EMULSIVE

Rain Through The Fog (Steve Novosel)

Let’s Explore Magazine
Prize: 1 copy of Let’s Explore Magazine — Issue 01 — Crossroads
Criteria: Most Brutal Lines: “Lines in an image will guide you, one way or another. They can draw your attention towards something, or even guide your eye away from something. They can provide a pleasant structure within an image or create tension. They can be glorious in minimal appearance, or bold and right in your face. They don’t have to be actual lines — a line of sight, or a mirroring of color can work just as well — but they are like the building blocks of an image. We’re looking for the most ‘brutal’ form of visual guidance imaginable.”
Winner: Dave Bradley, Paris
Comment: Brutal lines are often compared with “big gestures”. More often than not, I find the subtle ones, but with big impact, more inspiring. This image is a perfect example of just that. The crop emphasizes the slight motion blur, and by doing so makes the image come to life. Add to that the diagonal of the curb, which connects the leading characters moving in different directions, and you find your eye going all over the place in this capture. Can’t help but imagine how this would come out in a large print… — Kilian Idsinga

Paris (Dave Bradley)

The Impossible Project
Prize: Three prizes, each consisting of three expired film packs! Winners can choose from SX-70 (two prize packs available), or 600 (one prize pack available) formats.
Criteria: The Unexpected: “We want to see photos in which the beauty of the unexpected plays a vital role. It could be a break in chemistry that creates a strange and alien landscape, subtle artifacts appearing on the photo that frame the subject in unusual ways, or something more creative like painted shapes onto undeveloped shots or a collage layered onto the frame.”
Winner: Fred Zang, Unexpected power
Comment: The toxic atmosphere of this capture caught my eye. A great example of how powerful happy accidents can be when working with expired materials. — Amy @ Impossible

Unexpected power (Fred Zang)

Winner: Josh Wiederin, Expired Truck
Comment: There’s something really Lynchian about this image, beautiful yet haunting and unnerving at the same time. — Amy @ Impossible

Expired Truck (Josh Wiederin)

Winner: Ana Lourdes Hernandez, Junk
Comment: You can almost feel the heat coming from this capture, its imbued with such nostalgic longing. — Amy @ Impossible

Junk (Ana Lourdes Hernandez)

Film Rescue International
Multiple prizes:
Prize: Film Rescue full-service processing on one Kodak Kodacolor-X, Kodak E-4 color roll film, or one Agfachrome CT18 135 cassette.
Criteria: Best picture with the subject looking out of frame.
Winner: Michaella Vickers, my heart
Comment: Great job! It’s hard to get a picture with a person looking out of frame that works. In my opinion, the space to the left of the subject is nicely filled and the picture has good balance. — Greg @ FRI

my heart (Michaella Vickers)

Prize: Film Rescue full-service processing on one Kodak C-22 or E-4 color roll film, or Agfachrome CT18 135 cassette.
Criteria: Best picture with the subject dead center.
Winner: Roger Hewins, The Final Frame
Comment: Hmmm, I’m guessing that’s a factory hole punch with random distressed emulsion surrounding it. Nice abstract and something very familiar to us. Haha! To me it feels homey. I’d hang it on my wall. — Greg @ FRI

The Final Frame (Roger Hewins)

Prize: Three (3) rolls of unusual expired 35mm Kodak film, including Film Rescue full-service processing.
Criteria: Best photo that could be captioned, “Hey creep, it’s not a selfie — it’s a self portrait!”
Winner: Guy Phenix, Expired me
Comment: Hallelujah! Like a modern day Shroud of Turin. No need to carbon date — obviously expired! — Greg @ FRI

Expired me (Guy Phenix)

Prize: One special 20-exposure 126 format cassette loaded with fresh 35mm film, including normal processing with 3600-dpi full-frame scans.
Criteria: Best photo shot on expired 126 film.
Winner: Celina Innocent, for On the hill
Comment: For your effort and refusal to give up on Instamatic film, we’ll send you a fresh roll of 126 Instamatic — hope you have a camera for it. I think you downplay the picture too much — I like the pose and how it’s just visible enough to make it enigmatic. — Greg @ FRI

On the hill (Celina Innocent)

Partnership project: Film Rescue would like to choose a photographer to work with on a partnership project where we will offer our services and advice for free in exchange for working jointly together on what may end up as a blog, website, online gallery or even a physical show.
Winner: Dustin Veitch, for Inkwell Sky, Skully, and Open Door
Comment: We enthusiastically present our partnership prize to Dustin for his contemplative and serene images. Having done some online research, we see that Dustin takes his craft very seriously and has a true love for film and expired film. Most often at Film Rescue we’re working with people with lost-and-found film, not those who are seeking out expired film to shoot now, so a joint projects like this is exciting for us. Looking at Dustin’s website and Instagram, I notice a lot of similarities between his work and our own Dustin Werbeski, who is also a very serious film photographer. Our facilities and expertise will be available and, hopefully, will be well-exploited. We look forward to working with and supporting Dustin on whatever vision he comes up with. — Greg Miller

Inkwell Sky (Dustin Veitch)

UsedPhotoPro
Prize: Used Nikon FE2 and Nikkor AI 43-86mm f/3.5 lens
Criteria: “We love the uncertainty that expired film brings. We will be looking at the composition of image, technical merit, original content, light, and creativity in the image. Have fun!”
Winner: Matthew Doerr, Reluctant model.com
Comment: We chose Matthew Doerr’s image, ‘Reluctant model.com’, based on the composition, story-telling, and nostalgic yellow hues. With it being expired film, we were pleasantly surprised to see how great this image came out. We love the emotion told in the model’s stance and facial expression. — UsedPhotoPro team

Reluctant model.com (Matthew Doerr)


That’s the whole list, and what a list! Once again, choosing winners was a daunting task because there were so many great submissions for 2017. Our announcement comes a month later than intended, again, and we once more apologize for the delay. It was all Dan’s fault.

Congratulations to all our winners! We can’t wait for next year, and hope you can’t either.