Aside: this title could refer to so many scenarios this week. Heh.
A long, long time ago (back in 2009) I wrote here about the $11 Kodak Duaflex camera that the Ebay King bought me so I could experiment with TTV photography (through-the-viewfinder photography). The gist of the story was that inside the camera, we found an old roll of 620 film that the seller missed; Matt suggested that maybe the roll of film would end up being evidence in a cold case murder. You can read the whole story here.
I did send in that film thinking it would take 8 weeks to have it returned. Instead, it took over three years because right after I sent it in, the film lab I sent it to declared bankruptcy and my roll of mystery film got locked down by the courts, held hostage (along with my $40+) in bankruptcy limbo. I even received a notice from a lawyer in Denver that I was not to contact the lab about my property. Geez. So, I just chalked it up as a very unfortunate loss, a new cold case built on top of an old cold case. Hmph.
But then a few months ago, I was thinking about it again, and I got mad. I checked the film lab's website and they seemed to be operating in some semblance of normal—advertising services, accepting orders, etc. My Willis Consumer Gene kicked in and I wrote a very civil nastygram to request my roll of film back.
And guess what? THEY SENT IT BACK. I about fell over. They even reimbursed me for my original payment. If I didn't understand bankruptcy proceedings before, now I really don't understand them. But whatever. My murder film! In my hands once again! I immediately researched a new and more trustworthy lab to send my film off to and found a place with a very cool website that also seemed very reputable: Film Rescue International, located in northern North Dakota. I made the deadline of May 12 for my film to be developed in the next cycle, and waited with great anticipation for my online gallery of images to be ready (they digitize everything; you can order prints if you want on top of the very reasonable developing fee, which is only charged if they can recover images).
Here are a few of the images:
No murders. Just some photos of sweet old ladies, daffodils, and hollyhocks. Best frivolous expenditure of $29 ever.
