Great German Spa Towns on film

You know the drill by now. I like 35mm film and I often take a film camera with me when I travel and then come back with a selection of 90s-style photos of dubious quality which I just really enjoy. But on this trip, I had something even more fun. You see, back in 2003, just six weeks after I passed my driving test, I got my little car written off by a madman in an Aston Martin who tried to overtake a queue of traffic on a bend. His car caught fire, mine got its roof creased in the tiniest way but it’s enough to write off a car. So my dad bought a new car, a Clio of a shade of blue that somehow felt slightly unsatisfying. It came with a free disposable camera in the glovebox, in order to document any incidents, because in 2003 people simply didn’t have cameras in their phones and Renault thought it might be a good idea to have a camera on hand, without requiring people to remember to have some film in the holiday camera in the car at all times.

My mum found that disposable camera in a drawer a few weeks ago. I can’t remember what happened to the car, whether it was the one my dad wrote off in 2008 or whether it was the one we sold to my sister’s ex or something else altogether, but we apparently kept the camera. I can picture it – stick everything from the car in a box, stick the box in a cupboard, forget about it. The film inside that camera expired in 2005 having never been used. So I took it with me to Germany! Now, I’ve used expired film a few times – it all started with three rolls found in the back of a cupboard that must have been long-expired although I had no concept of that at the time, and I’ve had a couple more rolls of unknown origin that expired in 2021 which I’ve quite enjoyed. But this was the first time I’ve deliberately and knowingly – and excitedly – used film twenty years expired. And because it was meant for documenting car crashes, there were only 12 or so exposures (these things are never quite as accurate as the box says), which is a manageable number for a six-day trip – as much as I love film, I’m still really bad at remembering to take the film camera out of my bag and 24 exposures can accidentally last me months.

All that aside, time to see my 20-year-expired photos from Germany! And not just the highlights this time, either – no, I’m going to do the good, the bad and the spectacularly ugly.

A street with bare trees down the middle of it. The colours are weird but the picture itself is a bit dark and muted.

This is Sophienstraße in Baden-Baden and this is one of my favourites. It’s the colour effect, starting off quite yellow on the left-hand side, moving through green and blue and finishing with a hint of purple. This is undoubtedly a fun effect of expired film.

A very dark grainy photo of a fountain in the middle of the boulevard from the previous photo but it's a bit too dark to really see it.

Number two is one of the bad – it’s just a bit too dark up this close to the fountain. I suspect it would have the same expiry-rainbow effect across it if it was a bit brighter.

A Gothic church with two towers rising up out of the bushes until it's quite well silhouetted against the sky, which is both kind of blue and kind of yellow on film.

This one’s not terrible. I like the contrast of the church’s towers against the blue-yellow and I think there’s a bit of red in the darkness down at ground level.

The middle of Bad Kissingen as seen from the bridge. There's a river flowing underneath with grassy park on both sides and some villas above the grass.

This is Bad Kissingen and doesn’t it just look like a place meant to enjoy while doing nothing in particular? This is objectively one of the better pictures – doesn’t it look just like your 1990s holiday snaps? It’s just that little bit darker and more muted than a digital version would be.

Another church, this one less ornate and Gothic and a lot less silhouetted against the sky. It's all a bit yellow.

Another church and a slightly better photo, which is undoubtedly thanks to the better weather and therefore better light. Film cameras love light and with things like my little yellow Kodak and this disposable, you have zero control over… well, anything so the more light you can point your camera at, the better.

The view of the white-painted Kurhaus as seen from the other side of the river with some trees on this side and one thin bare one on the other side next to the Kurhaus.

The Kurhaus in Bad Kissingen and it’s not terrible. The colours are reasonably clear and it’s just a little dark on the left where there are a few too many trees.

A very hazy grey-green tinted photo of a park. You can just make out the texture of the barefoot trail on the left.

Bad! The park in Bad Kissingen and specifically the barefoot trail that nearly killed me and my feet – February was too cold and some of the features were too rough. I don’t know what it was that the camera didn’t like but this is dull, greyish and not entirely in focus.

A view of a different bit of a river from a different bridge. This one's pretty nice and bright and clear.

Another medium-good one. I took this one digitally as I arrived in Bad Kissingen and again on film nearly 24 hours later – probably couldn’t be bothered to find the camera after a bus and three trains yesterday and it’s come out pretty well. It could do with having the shadows turned up a bit around the sides but I’m reasonably satisfied with this.

The view from my hotel's roof in Bad Ems, looking at a small town set between mountains on either side of a river.

The view of Bad Ems from the rooftop terrace. This was fun – in winter, I’m not sure how long the sun spends peeking over the mountains – my digital photos from before breakfast are very blue-and-white but this, on the way out for the day, is definitely brighter. More interesting colours, from the ombre turquoise and navy sky to the yellowish tones down in town.

Emser Therme, a wood-clad building with various gentle curves and a slightly overhanging roof.

Emser Therme is a bit wonky but those angles and shapes almost feel like exactly the sort of mid-century design that was just made for film’s colour and graininess. It’s still too dark and shadowy but it’s got good potential.

A view down the river at Bad Ems with the weir in the middle and a small wooden structure, which is Emser Therme's riverside sauna.

The mountain on the right is too much in shadow for film by this time in the afternoon but I think this gives you an idea of the riverside sauna and its view of the weir, to say nothing of the hotel overlooking the whole thing.

A picture with reasonable lighting on the left but not so much on the right, looking down the river with bare trees poking out of a small island.

This one’s not bad either, a view down the river with sun and the sky and trees reflecting on the water. The trees and town are a bit yellow but it’s all pretty nice and clear.

There's a narrow strip of Bad Ems as seen from the opposite bank of the river on the far left of this photo, then something that looks like a strip of fire. Then a third of the photo is just white and then the third on the right turns yellow.

For the sake of fairness, I’m including this one, the end of the roll which was originally a photo of the church in Bad Ems as seen from the other side of the river. I think the lighting wasn’t too bad for this one but unfortunately, it got cut off. It kept whirring – I was still taking photos when I got to Frankfurt the next day, which was when I decided it had finished but it turned out it finished right here and made it nice and clear.

That’s not bad. That’s really not bad, especially considering the camera made no noise at all and I wasn’t even sure until Bad Kissingen that it was actually doing anything. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if the developer had emailed to tell me there was nothing on this roll. With other cameras, you can feel something happening as you press the shutter button, you can hear the camera whir or you can feel it as you manually wind it on but this was giving nothing back. So I was very pleased that there were pictures at all and I’m even more pleased that they’ve come out reasonably well! I’d be happy with most of these on brand new film and this expired half a lifetime ago!