Few these days of button starters in cars would remember or know that one time before cars had self-starters they had to be cranked by a lever in the front of the car under the radiator.

That crank broke many a finger (it would turn backwards without notice) until the self-starter was invented. Even then, for a while, just in case, some cars came with that crank.

As I slip into the few years left of my career  (that one is dead before its master) I remember stuff that is akin to that crank. These are facts about that disappeared era that one had to keep into account when doing anything.

In that 20 century one of my delights was to shoot Kodak b+w Infrared Film. This film had to be used with a deep red filter placed in front of the camera lens. Infrared film did see what we saw (in b+w) but it additionally glimpsed into the red spectrum of light which is denied to us. Using the film was sheer unpredictability. Consider that once you focused your lens with this film you had to go to a little red line marker on your lens which was where the film focused on.

Much was said about its variable ISO speed. I never had problems with my rating at 100ISO when processed in Dilution B of Kodak HC-110 developer.

One extremely fussy quirk of the film is that you could not open the film can in existing light. This had to be done in a darkroom or in a changing bag. Light could slip through and fog the film. This meant that the camera had to be loaded in a darkroom, closet or changing bag. Because of this fussy fuss there was one positive feature. When you loaded the film you did not have to advance the film as one did with normal film to get to the first exposure! In a 36 exposure roll I consistently had exposure zero and exposure 37.

This brings me to this photograph you see here. I found it in a box of stuff that I have a hard time throwing away. I suspected the film was infrared. It is numbered zero. What is it? I recognize the rocks as being Lighthouse Park in West Vancouver. What is that in the front? It looks like a book. But then I noticed the hair and it clicked in my mind. I went to my file on ColleenHughes to the envelope marked Lighthouse Park. I had negative shot with Kodak Technical Pan but also with Infrared. Exposure 1 and 2 are here. This means that zero is me. But a book on my legs?

I have 30 rolls of this beautiful film in my fridge. I think it is time to convince someone to pose for me for exposure zero and thirty seven. 

For anybody who might demand to see the negative zero's number I am unable to lay the cut exposure on my scanner without the ends curling.