I'm nearly done shooting through a very large stash of decades old expired black and white film I acquired at a flea market sale about a year ago. This is probably a good thing because the further and further down into the box of film I go the more the emulsion is showing its age.
In my experience, in order for expired black and white film to show any defects at all it has to be incredibly out of date, or it has had to go through some serious adverse storage conditions (like extreme fluctuations in temperature, or excessive damp air). When looking at the results of this image that appears to be the case.
After I developed the frame, it became clear to me that the backing paper had literally impressed itself onto the emulsion, leaving this little pattern of squares across the negative.
Strangely, I don't think this ruins the image necessarily. I sort of dig it in a strange way. It looks like a still frame from some 8mm real that got smudged or mishandled. I appreciate the fact that is was only geometric squares that made its way onto the emulsion as opposed to frame numbers or a brand name.
Ultimately, I just feel rather fascinated, humbled, and grateful that I'm able to pull an image out of a roll of film that sat on a store shelf before I was even born.