As the photography world has gone mostly digital, there remain some veterans who continue to expose on film. Although their numbers are becoming smaller year by year, some younger generation photographers – like me – are rediscovering the old art of exposing on film as the necessary equipment has never been cheaper on Ebay and the likes. Luckily, companies like Kodak are now offering films better than any available ever before, so shooting on film should be more fun than ever, right? Well, it’s true unless you take into account the enormous hassle that photographers have to go through when they travel with film.
Film, especially after it has been exposed already, is a very sensitive medium. It’s easy to ruin film. All it takes is too much heat, too much radiation, a critical amount of moisture and so on. While handling and taking care of film is usually no problem within the comfort zone of your home town it becomes much more inconvenient when you enter public transportation with all its modern, post 9-11 security requirements. One of the most dangerous sources of radiation that can harm your film are X-rays as you will encounter it in numerous scanning devices at all airports and many train and bus stations in many countries of the world. Also, covering a lot of distance inflight at great height will expose your film to a some radiation unless you shield it properly.