Pretty fly for a (black and) white guy!!

I had read a lot about the affect of airport X-Ray scanners on film … more so on exposed film. So when I had the chance to fly international for the first time, I thought I’d risk a couple of rolls of B & W film and see what happens.

India to USA
My first international flight (India to USA) – and travelling with me were
—> a Nikon F80 loaded with a roll of Kodak TMAX 100 (couple of years old) with only half the roll exposed … in check-in baggage
—> one roll of exposed Lomography Earl Grey 120 (rebranded Foma 100), tucked away in my cabin baggage.

I shot the rest of the TMAX roll in USA, and kept them aside to be developed when I setup my new darkroom in the US.

Back to India
As chance would have it, I had to go back to India for 3 weeks – the now completely exposed roll of TMAX and the Earl Grey roll traveled back to India with me (this time both in the cabin baggage).

Since I had disassembled my darkroom in India, I got the rolls developed and scanned by Sabir (very famous B&W photographer in Bangalore).

To my surprise, the shots on both the rolls came out just fine – after going through airport X-Ray machines twice!!
Next time I’ll try 400 film .. I’ve read they are the ones more susceptible to X-ray interference.

Scans from the Earl Grey revealed that the film was in fact expired … but I like the final result !!

TMAX 100 – Daily wage labourer

TMAX 100 – My father

TMAX 100 – USA 1

TMAX 100 – USA 2

Earl Grey 100 – Famous pan seller in MG Road, Bangalore

Earl Grey 100 – Old Monk Rum

Earl Grey 100 – (testing the self-timer on the Yashica 635) Me, the Mrs, and a boy named Dhaani 🙂