If there’s one thing I’m not, it’s fast. No, that’s not my excuse for posting photos taken back in 2022. It’s just a reality of my life, and one reason why it seems to take me ages to get through a roll of film.
So when Toyota offered some free Formula D tickets as part of their GR Corolla preview event, I was quick to snatch them up. Not only would a stop at Formula D LBC give me an opportunity to catch up with some industry friends, but it would allow me to finally burn through the roll of Lomography Metropolis 35mm film that had been wasting away in my Minolta X-300s.
Now, I’m not what you’d call a Lomography fan. I can’t buy into the “intentionally shitty” aesthetic of their plastic, toy film cameras, and many of their proprietary film stocks look too gimmicky for my tastes. But the early scans of Metropolis intrigued me with a straight-out-of-the-box look that matched the desaturated/high contrast look I was applying to my digital photos at the time. Film was cheapish at the time, so why not take a year or so to shoot a roll and see what develops? Er, developed. Pun not exactly intended.
My Minolta is fully manual and slooooow, so shooting any action, whether on track or in the pits, was still best left to my digital gear. But static, never-moving cars hard parked in a show area? Those would be the perfect subjects to try out this Minolta/Metropolis combo. And the results? Not too bad, though a lot grainier than what my digitally attuned eyes are used to.
The Mercedes 190E image up top is perhaps the best photo from the set, if not simply for the way the Benz pops from the washed-out, overcast backdrop. Maybe this film stock just likes to render blues and blacks, or maybe the film itself just like this Liberty Walk-kitted ZOCIETY S30 Z.
Even Goku approves.
I definitely had a phase where I’d shoot just the side windows or other small details of a car as, to me, they reveal a ton about the personality behind the build.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m pretty sure that the inside of this Toyota Century smells like Mild Sevens, Kyaba-kura and punch perms.
I don’t know if the green cast to this one happened in scanning (all done through Negative Lab Pro, by the way), or if the mango orange of this TE27 caused the film chemicals themselves to render the colors a bit differently. I’m not at all mad as how this came out, though.
Not a fan of JDM? Here you go.
And lastly, a detail of yet another DA Integra that will forever be cleaner than mine.
As for the rest of the roll, they’re not car-related, so those will perhaps live only on a hard drive from now until the end of time.
Final Thoughts
Will I ever shoot Metropolis again? I honestly have no idea. Film isn’t getting any cheaper (a roll runs about $14 at the time I’m writing this), and at the pace I shoot these days, it would probably take years for me to get through the rolls I still have sitting in my garage freezer. But if life got me out and shooting on a regular basis again, and if I knew I’d have an appropriately gritty setting really bring out this film’s high-grain, high-contrast look, then yeah, I’d totally be down to shoot it again.
