Denmark on film

Posted on by Julie

35mm film photos are very hit and miss. The pictures from Málaga are pretty terrible; quite dark and all the shadows tinted green, the pictures from Helsinki are a bit overexposed (blame the snow) and 17 are missing altogether and most of the pictures from Switzerland in January are a bit dark. But the pictures from Denmark are… good. They’re actually good. I’ve got 34 of them and they kind of look like the sort of pictures you’d take of your holiday in the 90s, when you didn’t have the option of a backup digital camera and smartphone in your pocket. For what it’s worth, this is ISO 400, which does a little better in lower light and what I’m more likely to take somewhere Nordic with unpredictable weather but I’m thinking that maybe I’ll give up on ISO 200 and stick to the 400.

Because there are so many of them, I’ve grouped them together.

Roskilde Cathedral, a big red brick Gothic church soaring up towards the blue sky and sunshine.
A reproduction Viking ship being rowed across the harbour.
Roskilde Viking Ship Museum, a collection of wooden buildings built on decking around the harbour.
Three giant ceramic vases in Roskilde, outside the station.

First up, the pictures from Roskilde. Ok, they’re not as good as digital pictures but come on, they’re not bad! They’re retro, they’re nostalgic and you can actually tell what they are without having to mess around with them first.

A film selfie, in a pink t-shirt, on a boat in Malmo.
A view of the canal in Malmo, just above where I got on the boat. There are buildings on the left and a pointed church spire.

A grand total of two of Malmö. I’m always surprised that selfies come out even vaguely in focus; it almost feels like cheap point-and-click cameras were designed with just the right focal length for selfies.

The field in Rødvig that leads down to the sea. This is my first glimpse of the glittering blue Baltic and it's only going to get better.
The beach and cliffs and sparkling blue sea just west of Rødvig.
The same beach but in the opposite direction, looking across the gorse and wildflowers towards Rødvig.
The track leading along the cliff and through a wildfire meadow towards the Stevns Klint Experience.
The blue bay just below the Stevns Klint Experience.
The beach with the cliff at the far end, the cliff with a layer of 66m year old debris in it.
A section of cliff with square marks in it where the cliff was quarried a few years ago.
A close-up of the section of cliff where the K-Pg boundary is, with a shingle beach below it.
The beach at Rødvig, which is quite shingly with a lighthouse at the end of it.

Oh, I have so many pictures of Stevns Klint and they’re all pretty good! Look at how the sea sparkles! I want to print these all out and stick them all over my office! The colours are a bit muted compared to their digital equivalent but compared to all the film photos I’ve taken this year, they’re bright and vivid and the sea is teal and I think they’re great. This is why I carry a second camera around with me; the hope of a day like this where I get nine perfect pictures.

Green Island, the floating restaurant where I hired a kayak, which you can see moored out the front in this picture.
Castellet, the star-shaped fort in the middle of Copenhagen.
A selfie in a purple t-shirt and bucket hat in the green leafy shady Assistens Cemetery.
The Little Mermaid, Copenhagen's most disappointing tourist sight. It's a small bronze statue sitting on a rock in the harbour, with the sea behind her most of the day so you can't even get a good photo of her.
The Genetically Modified Little Mermaid, a weird freakish version of the Little Mermaid with elongated limbs and heads, on a bigger pile of rocks in a former dock.

My Copenhagen pictures. Considering I spent at least three days in and around Copenhagen itself, I really should have more pictures than this. I’m quite pleased with both my Little Mermaid and Genetically Modified Little Mermaid pictures and even the cemetery selfie, which should have come out as a green-tinted underexposed mess, is surprisingly good.

An alley in Christiania with a pastel rainbow fence down a leafy alley.
A pink house down another leafy lane.
A green-clad house down a leafy lane.
A red brick single-storey building on the corner of two lanes that reminds me of a theatre.
Thistles with a bee in them.
A sign warning that this lane is car free with a pink house in the background.
A handmade wooden signpost with a dozen arrows on it, all saying positive things like "put your phone away", "don't worry, be happy" and "never give up".
A colourful house in Christiania seen through the trees.
A spraypainted house with balcony and skate ramp outside it.
An open air bookshop in Christiania.
A brick pillar with a dragon eye painted on it.
A sign up in Christiania with the same message hand-painted in multiple languages, extorting people to buy a share in Christiania.

Oh, Christiania was just made for film! It’s quite intimidating because there are zones that are outside Danish law and they have their own local laws – mostly that means there are places where you’re not allowed to take photos but it’s not necessarily obvious to outsiders where that is. On the other hand, it’s very colourful and very arty and very leafy and it just works so well with the vintage aesthetic of the film pictures.

So an unmitigated triumph! Best set of film photos I’ve ever taken and totally vindicates carrying a film camera around!

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