gold 200

I will probably write about this film stock 1,000 more times if I’m really committing to this bit.

Kodak Gold must be the best film stock that's accessible to everybody everywhere. It's helpful on sunny days with few clouds and good light. For me the idea of having golden light is something that I am constantly thinking about and constantly chasing.  When I shoot on my Fujifilm camera and play with the film simulations, I usually try to shoot warmer and have a color balance that makes the light stand out as more golden. I am constantly thinking of ways to make my shots look like Kodak Gold on a perfect day.

We've had a pretty good stretch of sunny days in London. One Saturday morning towards the end of March, I got up early to take a long walk. I loaded Kodak Gold 200 in my Contax RX, which is a camera that I love regardless of it being so incredibly heavy. The lens on my RX is a 50mm Carl Zeiss lens. It is so sharp when you hit focus. It is probably the best lens that I own.

Not hitting focus here lol.

The RX that I own went through repairs a couple months ago.  Essentially, the light meter in the camera was always off by 1/2 a stop to a full stop depending on what sort of contact was made with the aperture ring on the lens. My shots would be a little too dark or a little too light if I just went off the exposure meter on the camera. I had to calculate in my head what would be the right adjustments to make manually on the camera for the exposure to even out. In a way, this slowed down the entire film capturing process: an already slow process, but in return, this helped me be even more mindful about the shots I was taking (which sometimes came through and sometimes did not).

The trees blossoming in London made for the best pictures with this film; the pink flowers and the trees on the old buildings just work it can be so pretty in London when it's not cloudy cold miserable and people just want to end it all.

I took a stroll towards Regents Park and walked through the gardens there only a few people were out some people were taking photos it was overall just magical.

I really like this one shot with this woman with a mask over her mouth standing in the distance with these blossomed trees in an empty park. First, why are you wearing a mask in this park at 7:00 AM in the morning when no one else is around? No judgement: truly wear the mask if you want, it's respectable, I get it. It was just such a striking thing to see in such a secluded, beautiful place. To me this makes for a good photo.

Towards the end of the day, I walked back to Highbury Fields by my neighborhood. One of my favorite shots that I took on this role has an insane lens flare a feature that not a lot of photographers like, but I think Instagram really likes - so by proxy I've been trained to like it just from being on my phone an exorbitant number of hours in the day. This guy on the bench with his dog is pretty much bait for double taps, don't you think?

Film: Kodak Gold 200
Frame Dates: 29th March 2025
Development Date: 2nd April 2025