Problems with Multiple Exposures

I am ashamed to say that I didn't get my roll of multiple exposure film done in time to develop it with the class. Therefore, I decided to do my project over winter break. As it turns out, this was even more unwise to do than not completing the project in the first place.

But a little more background is needed before I can tell you why my "brilliant idea" was unwise. At first, I thought that I had a multiple exposure function on my camera. It's a fairly advanced camera, the best for the non-professional photographer (at least, it was in the 1980s). However, much to my disappointment, it doesn't, so I had to do it the manual way, where you layer the photos on each other. First, you put the film in, mark where it comes out of the canister, and change the ISO to 800 (the ISO of the film I'm using is 400, so you double it to have two photos on one roll). Then you take a bunch of high contrast images and finish the roll. After you've finished the roll, you wind it up until you are at that spot that you marked earlier. Then take photos like normal (especially high contrast images).

Now for why doing my project over break wasn't a great idea. You see, I finished the first "roll" (the first layer of the multiple exposure photographs) during the first week of break, hoping that I could do the second "roll" the second week. But my camera has a semi-automatic wind (I have to initiate the wind myself), and I couldn't stop the camera from rolling the film up completely in the canister. Now, Mr. Hohman has a special device called a "claw" that can remove as much of the film as you want in case this happens, which would have been especially useful after my mishap. However, I couldn't go to Hohman to get my film clawed; I still had a week left of break, and now had a useless canister of half-exposed film left on my hands.

To make matters worse, I was going to bring my film today, the first day back that I have Photography, to get it clawed. I had put it in a safe place, but then we moved my grandmother up from Redding and into an assisted living facility up here, and since she was staying with us for a night, my family automatically had to clean the entire house. In the process, my film was misplaced, and I didn't learn about that little detail until this morning.

When I get home, however, I am going to interrogate every member of my family to see if they moved it, and I am going to search for it until I do find it. After I complete my actual academic homework. That always comes first, of course. Anyway, here's to hoping I find it in time to get it clawed, photographed, and the contact sheet and prints done by the time that they are due, which is next Monday. Great. This is going to be an interesting week....