One Roll — March 2026

NOTE: This post is publishing while I am away in Bequia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, where the X-T5 is getting its first proper outing. Posts this week were scheduled in advance. I had a plan. Expose one roll per location, finish it in a single session, keep everything tidy and intentional. Load the camera, go somewhere, come home with a complete roll. That lasted about as long as most plans do when film is involved, which is to say not very long at all. The roll of CatLABS X FILM 320 Pro I loaded into the Minolta XD-11 on 14 March 2026 was already expired — purchased on 20 September 2022, which made it nearly three and a half years past its box date. That’s not a casual expiry. At that distance, you start to wonder whether the film will simply do what film does, or whether it will do something stranger: shifted contrast, fogged shadows, unpredictable grain. I rated it at ISO 200, one stop under the box speed of 320, as a precaution against the sensitivity drift that comes with age. The film behaved. The tones came out rich and contrasty, the grain stayed disciplined, and the black-and-white rendering felt right for the kinds of places I ended up pointing the camera at: old barns, fire stations, beer glasses catching afternoon light, a painted ox standing alone in a field. Boutique Film Lab processed the roll on 26 March 2026. I scanned it myself on 21 April 2026 using an Epson Perfection V600 Photo and processed the negatives in Negative Lab Pro. The results held up well at the scanning stage — no colour casts in the shadows, no obvious base fog, nothing to suggest the film had suffered much from its years in storage. The reason the roll ended up spread across the month rather than consumed in one outing is straightforward. I kept going places. The same places, mostly. Flounder Brewing in Hillsborough. Rocky Hill. The cluster of farms and restaurants around Hopewell. These aren’t destinations I seek out specifically because I have a camera. They’re just where my regular life takes me, and I happened to have the Minolta on the passenger seat. Flounder Brewing Co. operates out of a cluster of historic barns on Carriage Farm in Hillsborough, and it’s been part of my routine for long enough that the drive there is automatic. Jeremy Lees and his brothers started homebrewing around 2010, opened to the public in 2013 as one of New Jersey’s early nano-breweries, and have been quietly expanding ever since. They now run a 15-barrel brewhouse and offer live music and events alongside the beer. It doesn’t feel like a brewery that’s trying to become something bigger than it is. It feels like people who like making beer and want other people to enjoy it, which is a rarer quality than you’d think. Flounder Brewing · March 2026Minolta XD-11 · ISO 200MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · 45 mm I photographed a pint of the Hogs Head Bitter. It’s an English-style Extra Special Bitter at about 5.3% ABV, brewed with East Kent Goldings and Bramling Cross — earthy hops that lean fruity rather than assertively bitter. The name references a traditional British cask size, which is exactly the kind of detail that appeals to me. In person, in the glass, it’s amber and clear with a tan head. On film, rendered in black and white, it reads as dark liquid and pale foam on a wooden table with soft light coming from somewhere to the left. Film removes the colour cues you rely on without noticing, and what remains is shape, light, and texture. A pint of bitter and a pint of stout are almost indistinguishable in monochrome. There’s something levelling about that. Connor at Flounder Brewing · March 2026Minolta XD-11 · ISO 200MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · 45 mm I also photographed Connor behind the bar. He was mid-conversation, relaxed, leaning slightly forward with his hands moving through whatever point he was making. The overhead pendant light fell well. The MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 handles low interior light better than I expect every time I use it — I keep being slightly surprised — and the CatLABS film held the shadow detail in the wood-panelled walls without turning everything muddy. Three and a half years expired, rated one stop down, processed by a professional lab: the combination gave me negatives I was glad to scan. From Hillsborough I ended up in Rocky Hill eventually, which is a small borough in Somerset County that most people pass through without stopping. I stop because I always stop. There’s a quality of light on the main street in the morning that I’ve never fully been able to account for. It has something to do with how the buildings are spaced and how open the sky is above the road. Rocky Hill Fire Department · March 2026Minolta XD-11 · ISO 200MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · 45 mm The Rocky Hill Fire Department building rewards attention. It’s a red-brick firehouse with arched window frames, carved stone lettering above the garage doors, and a flagpole out front. The volunteer department has roots going back to the 19th century and still operates on trained volunteers rather than full-time paid firefighters, which for a borough this size is exactly what you’d expect and exactly what has kept these communities functioning for more than a hundred years. On a clear March morning with the flag moving against a pale sky, it’s the kind of subject that doesn’t need embellishment. The Minolta metered it correctly and the V600 scan resolved the brickwork cleanly. One53 · March 2026Minolta XD-11 · ISO 200MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · 45 mm ONE53 is down the street. Chef-owner Mike Guskiewicz opened it in 2007 and built it around seasonal, locally sourced produce from Hopewell Valley farms. The menu changes with what’s available. The food is refined without being fussy, which is a balance that’s harder to maintain than it sounds. I photographed the exterior: the corner of the building, the ONE53 signage, the bare winter trees alongside. The dark facade panel against paler masonry gave the film strong contrasts to work with. Old Barn at Brick Farm Tavern · March 2026Minolta XD-11 · ISO 200MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · 45 mm The Brick Farm Tavern is in Hopewell, and it rewards repeated visits precisely because it changes. Jonas and Robin Olesen opened it in 2015 on the Double Brook Farm property, centred on sustainably raised meats and organic produce from the surrounding land. The menu is seasonal in the proper sense — it changes because the ingredients change, not because a designer decided the aesthetic needed refreshing. The main building is a restored historic barn with a cupola and weathervane visible from the car park, and the whole site has the feeling of a place that has been used for a long time and is being used thoughtfully. Brick Farm Tavern · March 2026Minolta XD-11 · ISO 200MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · 45 mm Out front is the Agricolox sculpture, which I hadn’t managed to photograph before. It’s a life-sized ox created by artist Nancy Stark for the Hopewell Valley Arts Council’s “Stampede” public art project. The name blends “ox” with the Latin agricola, meaning farmer. The design pays tribute to the valley’s agricultural history from the 1700s through to present-day small-scale farming, rendered in vivid water-soluble oils — golden fields, Jersey tomatoes, zinnias, whimsical bees and birds. In bright sunlight it’s apparently vivid and busy. On a grey March morning, in black and white, the ox reads as something stranger and more solitary. That’s not a flaw in the film or the weather. It’s the image that was actually there, rather than the image the subject was designed to offer. Film doesn’t perform the way digital sensors do. It records what the light decides to keep. Agricolox at Brick Farm Tavern · March 2026Minolta XD-11 · ISO 200MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · 45 mm Behind the main building is the Dog Run Bar, the tavern’s seasonal outdoor extension — picnic tables on a lawn, space for dogs, a simplified menu alongside Troon Brewing draught pours. It operates mainly in warm weather. In March the tables were arranged but empty, the grass still a winter brown, the whole space holding its breath before the season turns. Empty seasonal spaces have a particular quality that I keep wanting to photograph. They’re neither open nor closed. They’re waiting. Dog Run Bar at Brick Farm Tavern · March 2026Minolta XD-11 · ISO 200MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · 45 mm Troon Brewing is on the same Double Brook Farm site, operating out of a restored 19th-century barn. Alex Helms founded it around 2015, and the brewery has developed a following for small-batch experimental beers — particularly hazy IPAs and stouts — released in limited quantities without a fixed schedule and announced primarily on Instagram. There’s no traditional taproom. You can buy cans or growlers to take away, or drink draught at Brick Farm Tavern next door. The whole operation is deliberately constrained in scale, which contributes to both the quality and the cult status. Troon Brewing · March 2026Minolta XD-11 · ISO 200MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · 45 mm The barn photographs well from almost any angle. White-painted clapboard exterior, Troon signage, the cupola with its weathervane against a pale sky. The CatLABS film handled the transition from the brightly lit exterior walls to the dark doorways without blocking up the shadows or blowing out the highlights — confirmation that rating a three-and-a-half-year-expired stock at ISO 200 was the right call for the kind of direct March sunlight I was working in through the middle of the day. The last location I want to mention is not a success story. Sourland Mountain Spirits was a grain-to-glass distillery founded around 2014–2015 by Ray Disch in the Sourland Mountain area of Hopewell. It produced small-batch gin, vodka, rum, and eventually whiskey and bourbon using locally connected ingredients, and it was part of the same farm-to-table ecosystem that Brick Farm Tavern and Troon Brewing inhabit. The gin received recognition. The tasting room drew visitors to a rural farm setting in a way that felt consistent with everything else happening in this part of New Jersey. After roughly a decade, it has closed. The tasting room is no longer operating. The site is still there. Site of the former Sourland Mountain Spirits Distillery · March 2026Minolta XD-11 · ISO 200MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · 45 mm I photographed it twice: once from the road, once closer in. There’s nothing visually dramatic about a closed distillery in March — it looks like any other quiet rural property on a pale-sky day. But knowing what it was changes how you look at it. The grain-to-glass model runs on the same fragile economics as most small craft producers: local ingredients, limited distribution, visitors willing to make the trip out. When the economics shift, or when the energy that sustained the founder runs out, the place simply goes quiet. The film doesn’t editorialise. It records the building, the bare branches in front of it, the solar panels on the roof next door. The context is something you bring with you. Site of the former Sourland Mountain Spirits tasting room · March 2026Minolta XD-11 · ISO 200MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · 45 mm So the roll didn’t go according to plan. It was exposed across a month, at places I return to regularly, with a film stock I’d bought in September 2022 and hadn’t loaded until March 2026. Nearly three and a half years in a drawer, and it still gave me negatives worth scanning. Boutique Film Lab did right by it. The V600 resolved the grain without fighting it. Negative Lab Pro handled the inversion without drama. I keep trying to find a system — one roll per location, one roll per event, something with more structure. What I keep finding instead is that the structure isn’t really the point. The camera was in the car. The film was loaded. When I stopped somewhere I’ve stopped a hundred times before, I had a reason to look at it a bit more carefully than I otherwise would have. One Roll is a monthly film photography series. Each month I load a single roll of 35mm film into the Minolta XD-11, shoot it across whatever presents itself, and mail the exposed cartridge to Boutique Film Lab for developing. The best frames from the negatives end up here. During the pandemic I bought considerably more film than I could shoot. Most of the stockpile has since expired. A few cartridges remain usable through 2026 and 2027, and One Roll is how I am working through them (expired or not) — one roll per month, one lens per roll, whatever I happen to find in front of the camera. Technical Notes Film: CatLABS X FILM 320 Pro, rated ISO 200 Development: Box speed, Boutique Film Lab, Ilfotec RT developer Camera: Minolta XD-11 Lens: MD Rokkor-X 45mm f/2 Scanning: Epson Perfection V600 Photo via VueScan, DNG output Processing: Negative Lab Pro EXIF: Exif Editor by Martin Novak