No one fails anymore. At least that’s how it seems. We’re surrounded by status updates, tweets, Instagram selfies, all highly polished to portray success and perfection. The reality is we all fail. We all make mistakes. We all do things that don’t work out that no one ever hears about.

I wanted to to share a story about a recent failure of mine. It may not end up being a complete failure but it certainly isn’t perfection. You be the judge.

Last year I was given a roll of medium format film by Darryl Carey. Those of you who subscribe to my YouTube channel have probably heard me mention him before. He’s a professional photographer, cafe and gallery owner, and YouTuber based in Auckland New Zealand. He challenged me to try something new, medium format film photography.

When I got back to Canada I went about purchasing a medium format camera, a Pentax 645, which promptly sat unused for a year. I was intimidated by this beast of a camera. It turns out it very easy to use and I finally shot Darryl’s roll last week.

When I got it back from the lab it was totally blank. Initially I thought it was camera related. After doing some googling and retracing my steps I realized I most likely put the film in backwards. The film back on a Pentax 645 loads somewhat differently than the 35mm cameras I’m used to. This means I took 15 shots directly on to the backing paper of the film.

I don’t know about you but I’ve never produced an image from backing paper.

Directly after this failure I grabbed 2 rolls of expired film that came with the camera when I bought it. I watched a YouTube video about how to load the film correctly. I’ve shot both rolls and dropped them off at the lab. Will they work? I have no idea. But I know it was most likely my fault that Darryl’s roll was wasted.

Its ok to fail. It’s how we learn. It’s even better to share your failures with other. Maybe it will help them avoid making the mistakes you made. They’ll make their own mistakes, and maybe they’ll share those with you in return.

Scott.