Found: Michelle’s Fisheye Film

It’s “Found Film” Friday, and this week’s “found” roll comes to us from the same place as last week’s roll – but appears to be from a different photographer. Among that set of different 35mm rolls, none of which appeared to be particularly old, one had been marked with permanent marker, “Dev for Michelle” (the 400TX roll on the bottom left):

Unfortunately, Michelle’s friend never held up his end of the deal – he never developed her film, and not only didn’t return it, but it ended up being sold on eBay. Maybe one day she will be able to track her photos down on this blog.

When I pulled the roll out of the developing tank, I was surprised to see that they all seemed to have a large circle on them. I thought at first this might be from some kind of camera, but after researching and looking at the full roll, have decided she must have used some kind of fisheye lens to give her photos this appearance.

I believe we have photos of the photographer. Like last week’s photographer, she appears to have taken a selfie – though she is on about half of the photos where the camera is held by someone else. So it could be either of the women who show up in the photos. Here’s he selfie, followed by the other woman who shows up in the photos:

We also know the photos were all taken in Los Angeles. In or near Venice Beach. How do we know? From this photo:

It appears to be a double exposure, but at least of the exposures in the above photo was taken from this exact spot in Venice, CA. And through the magic of Google Street View, we can take a stroll down the street and see that the photo near the top of this post, with the guy standing near the phone booth, was taken here.

And we also know that the photos were taken within the last 7 years or so. Probably in 2007ish. From the photo below.