Expired? You're hired!

If the relatively high cost of film is putting you off analogue shooting, what about trying expired film? Miles MyerscoughHarris discusses the appeal of expired film with Geoff Harris (no relation)

- Geoff Harris

While there are more resources for film photographers than ever before, there is no getting around the fact that it’s not a particularly cheap branch of photography. Sure, decent film cameras can still be picked up fairly cheaply, so long as you don’t choose a model lusted after by hipsters, but the cost of film has increased over the past couple of years. Then there is the cost of film development.

You shouldn’t let all this deter you, however. The ever-ingenious analogue film community is also getting good results from using expired film – emulsions that are past, often way past, their recommended storage deadline. (While the price of expired film has also gone up of late, it’s still a very viable option.)

This ingenuity is embodied by Miles Myerscough-Harris, who set up Expired Film Club and has become something of a social media star, with legions of followers. He also shoots sports and live music with film – genres that were never particularly easy with film cameras. What gives?

Childhood passion

‘I’ve honestly been into photography for as long as I can remember,’ Miles recalls by way of background. ‘It’s funny, recently we found some old home video tapes of me when I was about two, and all I wanted to do was grab the camera off my mum and use it myself! Throughout my childhood I made hundreds of home movies, I would always take a camera everywhere with me. It’s just always somehow been in my blood, but I’m not sure where it came from as neither my dad nor my mum were particularly into photography – they always just handed the camera over to me,’ (Miles’s dad is the celebrated music broadcaster, Bob Harris).