2017 has gotten off to a pretty unforgettable start for me. I celebrated my 21st birthday on the 18th February and was lucky enough to go away with my boyfriend and family to Iceland. We spent 3 nights in the Reykjavik area, touring the Golden Circle and dipping into the blogger-famous Blue Lagoon. The following weekend, I was blown away with being surprised by my boyfriend with a weekend in Paris! We travelled down on the Eurostar from St Pancras and had a wonderful couple of days exploring a few of the main sights and exploring a little off the beaten track. While Paris was a surprise, I had planned to take some 35mm film with me to Iceland to capture some of the memories. After doing some research into whether my film roll would be damaged by passing through the airport x-ray scanners, I concluded that for my purposes it would be ok to pass through the hand baggage scanners a couple of times (once on the way out and once on the return journey). Apparently the x-rays they use for checked luggage are far stronger and so it's advised never to put film roll in hold bags. I knew that I may experience some fogging but I wasn't too concerned. What I didn't account for was Paris. Given the security situation in the city, most museums and attractions required me to put my camera though an x-ray machine. Add this to the security checks for the Eurotunnel, I thought that my photographs would be all but destroyed by the time it came to developing. I estimate that this particular film roll passed through x-ray scanners around 10 times, and since the damage cased to film by x-rays is cumulative, I didn't have high hopes. But I have been pleasantly surprised by the results. Of course the x-rays have had some visible effect on the photographs, but there's something quite lovely about it. I thought I'd share a little mixture of photographs from the two trips.
