Every now and then a roll of film comes along that reminds you why film photography is fun in the first place. Not technically perfect, not particularly sensible, but full of character. That was exactly my experience shooting a roll of Dubblefilm Jelly recently on a trip to Wales.
Jelly is one of those films that doesn’t try to behave itself. The colours lean heavily into pinks, reds and magentas, and the overall effect is somewhere between nostalgic and slightly surreal. The greens in particular shift in a way that makes landscapes feel a bit dreamlike, as if someone has quietly turned the colour dial a notch too far while you weren’t looking.
I took it with me to Wales where the light was doing what Welsh light often does. Moving quickly, sometimes soft and grey, sometimes suddenly bright. It turned out to be a very good match for this film. Ordinary scenes took on an unexpected warmth, and anything with strong colour already present seemed to lean happily into the film’s personality.
What I liked most was the sense of unpredictability. With digital you tend to know exactly what you are going to get. With Jelly you have a rough idea, but the results still manage to surprise you when the scans come back. A wall becomes more pink than you remember. A patch of grass slides towards something slightly more psychedelic. It feels playful in a way that makes you look at things a little differently while you’re shooting.
It’s probably not a film you’d want to use for everything. If you’re trying to document colours faithfully, this isn’t the one. But that’s also the point. It’s not about accuracy, it’s about atmosphere.
The grain is there but not intrusive, and the colours do most of the storytelling anyway. The overall feel of the images has a slightly lo-fi charm that suits street scenes, seaside towns and anywhere that already has a bit of visual character.
What stayed with me most after the trip was how enjoyable it was simply to use. It encourages a slightly more relaxed way of photographing. You stop worrying about getting everything technically perfect and instead lean into the quirks knowing that whatever comes out is going to be slightly obscured by the colouring.
In short, Dubblefilm Jelly is a film that doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s colourful, slightly odd in the best way, and genuinely good fun to shoot. And sometimes that’s exactly what you want from a roll of film.