This past end of summer, i spent a couple of months working a seasonal retail job in Bar Harbor, Maine. This was my second stint at this job and I was so happy to be living so close to the water- right on Main Street. Months prior, I had bought 3 rolls Portra 160VC film from eBay that had expired in 2012. I knew I was taking a risk with expired film, but it was stored refrigerated and I overexposed it by one stop to account for each decade since its expiration date. However, I've never shot Portra 160VC so I have no work of my own or experience to compare to.
So, it's a beautiful sunny September day in Bar Harbor. I had the day off from work, so I decided to finally put the roll to good use. I stepped outside my apartment and quickly crossed the street to start walking the shore path. The shore path sits right along Agamont Park and is known for being a nice, easy walk along the coast that goes along the edge of Bar Harbor and follows Frenchman Bay. It was my go-to route for when I needed a nice, flat, relaxing walk and the fresh air of the sea to revive me after a long day at work.
This was my first season having full access to the coastal path. I never got to fully walk the shore path last season because a treacherous winter storms wiped out sections of it. Thankfully, Friends of Acadia, a nonprofit organization that supports Acadia National Park by funding projects, providing equipment, and organizing volunteers to help care for the park, came in and saved the shore! They helped clear debris and funded construction equipment used to rebuild so that it would be ready for peak visitor season. Anyways...back to the film!
I chose my favorite images from the roll. Enjoy!
One year later, despite the devastation caused by the 2024 hurricane, the iconic Balancing Rock still remained.
Impressions
According to Kodak Moments, Portra 160VC is known for maintaining natural skin tones, vivid colors, fine grain, and medium contrast. My scans, however, seem slightly desaturated. The greens are muted and dull and the blue water appears more cyan.
Portra 160 has an exposure latitude of around -1EV to +3EV, especially when the highlights are overexposed. This means that it can keep details and will not readily "blow out" even when overexposed. I think the film's latitude especially helped me in this situation where exposing for a bright sky or the sun's reflection off the water could have easily made me overexpose. Instead, Portra 160VC did me a solid preserved the detail and texture of the water and sky.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I really liked this film! I don't usually shoot low iso films so it was nice to stray from the usual and switch it up. I also personally love the colors. They feel deeply nostalgic, like remembering a family vacation from childhood. I'm definitely excited to shoot the other two rolls of this expired film! To date, this roll contains some of the best photos I've taken using expired film. It is definitely going to the top of my list of expired film expedition experiments.
Read about Portra 160VC and other Portra 160 film here: e4051.fm
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