Miles Myerscough-Harris had a simple task: recreate a 100-year-old team photo of the AIK soccer club. His main piece of equipment, a No. 4 Cartridge Kodak camera made in 1897, added a layer of complexity to that assignment.
Days prior to AIK's match against Örebro SK on Feb. 18, the club released a special kit to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Allsvenskan, Sweden's first division, which AIK plays in. Players donned the kits before the game against Karlberg as Myerscough-Harris prepared to take the photo.
With the starting 11 lined up, the time came for him to capture the moment. But there was an issue. He had a polite request to photographers who stepped ahead of him: Could everyone move back?
Myerscough-Harris needed to stand 40 feet away from the players to fit everyone in the frame. As photographers held on to their digital cameras and Myerscough-Harris brought his, the sight of a large, bulky camera that had to be taken out of a leather case left them amazed.
"They looked at it and they're like, my God, what are you doing with that? It was really funny," Myerscough-Harris told ESPN. "But everyone was very supportive, actually. It was really nice. All the other photographers sort of stood there and thought it was really cool."
Myerscough-Harris had enough time to snap just one photo then hope that when the expired 35mm film was developed, it would be the right shot.
Luckily, it was. As of March 12, his posts sharing his work from the match across Instagram, TikTok and X have garnered over 10 million views.
He shared a story about the camera on social media in August 2023, catching the attention of someone from the online store Pro:Direct Soccer, who reached out to him and pitched the idea of shooting AIK in its special kit using the camera.
"Then we got in touch with the club and also Nike Sweden, who were sort of involved in the launch and obviously the design of the kit and stuff as well," Myerscough-Harris said. "And it all came together, which was incredible."
Myerscough-Harris' wife, Catherine, found the 127-year-old camera at an antique store in Farnham, England.
The antique store attempted to get in touch with the dealer it bought it from but didn't get much information about where the camera originally came from. However, Myerscough-Harris said it was being used as a prop in theater productions.
With more time on his hands during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2021, he began buying "old, weird and wonderful film cameras" paired with expired film to experiment. Myerscough-Harris, based in Oxfordshire, a county town in England, would then post his photos on an appropriately named social media account: @ExpiredFilmClub.
It was a no-brainer to grab the camera. Taking photographs of sporting events with old cameras or film is nothing new for him, but he'd never done so with a device as old as this one. He brought a newer camera to the match as well.
Shooting a football match on 35mm film ⚽️🎞️ #expiredfilmclub pic.twitter.com/Y286a9AjoT
— Miles | Expired Film Club (@expiredfilmclub) March 3, 2024
As Catherine brought the camera down from a shelf at the antique store, it immediately got Myerscough-Harris' attention. Typically, older cameras are not in great condition or may not be fully operational, he said.
"This one, [I] picked it up off the shelf and I could just tell it was in beautiful condition and everything worked perfectly. So I was like, I mean, I've gotta get it," Myerscough-Harris said.
The 40-foot distance from the team was a slight guesstimate. The camera has a tiny viewfinder, which is a mirror that shows what you're aiming at. Myerscough-Harris explained that as you adjust the lens, there's a little metal arrow that points to how far you're focusing.
Alongside his younger brother Dylan and someone from Nike Sweden, Myerscough-Harris got them to stand where they thought the team would. The viewfinder showed the team would have to stand 40 feet away in order to get the 11 men in the photo.
The process of traveling with the camera wasn't too bad, Myerscough-Harris said. He used the leather case the camera came with to carry it and walked through the airport "holding it as I go through security like a baby."
Myerscough-Harris ended up with five total photos from the match, including two action shots. He used his typical expired 35mm film.
The expired film Myerscough-Harris often uses adds a different feel to the results -- colors can get distorted and photos can be extra grainy.
"[It's] sort of applying a random filter to your film photos sometimes because you can get some shots back that have been taken on an expired film," he said. "And just the colors are all wild and there's light leaks sometimes if the film's been tampered with."
A few alternates from the @AIKfotboll 100 year-old kit launch 📸 all shot on 35mm film #expiredfilmclub pic.twitter.com/lvR7K8lsPT
— Miles | Expired Film Club (@expiredfilmclub) February 26, 2024
Myerscough-Harris owns 15 to 20 different cameras, but he uses only four or five regularly. The 1897 camera is his oldest.
He also has a box brownie camera from the 1920s and a folding camera from the 1940s, and he recently bought a World War II camera used in aerial surveillance.
The reactions to his photograph from the match surprised Myerscough-Harris.
"I think the fact that we recreated the sort of original team photo on a camera that was 100 years old ... added that extra bit of interest," Myerscough-Harris said. "But it's been really lovely to see the reaction. I mean it's been great to see how far and wide it spread."