My eighth roll of film in my Nikon FM and thirteenth roll of film overall. I took these photos while living in a 17-foot travel trailer in Little Rock, Arkansas. Although I was not a huge fan of Arkansas, there were amazing parks and historical sites to visit around the area.
I tend to send rolls of film in batches so that multiple rolls are developed together, reducing my trips to the post office. After this roll, it took me until April 2025 to finish two more rolls, which was enough for me to send them in. I love film, but it ebbs and flows with digital photography and my changing work schedule.
Although my Nikon FM still snaps with seemingly accurate timing after all these years, I find that the internal light meter may be losing sensitivity, as many photos come out washed out. This “washed out” effect is due to the photos being underexposed. The Nikon FM’s internal light meter is simple: it consists of three dots in a column. The bottom dot indicates underexposure, the top indicates overexposure, and the middle indicates just right. I always expose for the middle, and although bright elements of the image could confuse the light meter, I think I will accompany my next roll from the Nikon FM with a light meter or app on my phone.
Only 13 out of the 36 exposures on this roll ended up being photos that I “keep.” (I keep them all, just not publicly display them all). And although I am only satisfied with 1/3 of the roll, I was excited to get some photos on Portra 800. I had an entire roll of Portra 800 lost on my Minolta, so now I am eager to shoot another roll.
My favorite photos from this roll are of the Old Mill, a memorial park used in the opening scenes of Gone With The Wind, some lakeside scenes from “Lake No. 1,” near the Old Mill, and some canoes in a state park in the Arkansas Ozarks.
