Car and Driver: Old-School Cool: Photographer Shoots the Daytona 500 Entirely with Expired Rolls of Film

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As anyone who ever spent a night processing negatives in a hotel bathroom can attest, film photography has its disadvantages. No match for the efficiency and immediacy of modern digital reproduction, shooting with film not only demands patience, but also introduces a reactionary element to the process where the slightest variables can have major effects. To revisit and explore the dynamics of the almost forgotten art of capturing images on film, professional photographer Chip Litherland pulled out his film gear (Nikon FM + FE-2 and a 50mm and 35mm lens for each) and set out for the highly photogenic 2016 Daytona 500. To make things really interesting and give the aforementioned “reactionary” process a head start, Litherland used exclusively rolls of “super-expired” film he had amassed, including one more than 40 years old.

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Of the experience, Litherland says, “Getting imagery out to the world in the matter of seconds just because we can seems to have taken over the fun and thought of what it was like in the film days (which makes me sound old at 38).” While there are easier and more calculating ways to get a nostalgia fix, it’s likely that none of them provide the same grainy, over-saturated glimpse of Americana that these photos do. Litherland says the plan was to get photos “that echoed the timelessness of Daytona and its fan base,” and we’d say he succeed spectacularly.

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Lest the photography upstarts get too carried away with the romanticism of the whole thing, Litherland adds a nice reality check as a disclaimer of sorts: “All that being said, film is a pain in the ass. We have it so easy now.”

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Do yourself a favor and surf on over to Chip Litherland’s site and check out the whole set.

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