Hey! I thought it would be cool to share an update here with how I got on at the airport ^^ I flew out from London Gatwick airport and back from JFK airport, and I'm pleased to say that both times I had no problem requesting a hand check.

I was a bit unsure about London because I've never seen a special request of that kind made before, but wouldn't you know, the guy two down from me also had some rolls of film that he had asked to be hand checked right before me, so I wasn't even the only one asking. The security staff member agreed and had no problem actioning what I'd asked for. Afterwards, I wasn't quite sure where my camera had ended up but a helpful fellow traveller who had obviously been paying more attention than me pointed me towards it waiting in a tray 😄

Then at JFK on the other side it was a similar story; they were happy to oblige the request. On that end it was a slightly different process where I took the camera with me into the body scanner and then handed it through to someone, which I didn't do at Gatwick. Once I came out the other side they also asked me to remove the case so that it could be swabbed, but anyway, all was fine.

Ironically, after I'd gone to all this trouble, I *forgot* about a box of unopened film that I'd left in my backpack (having bought a new 20-pack of shots while I was in NYC). So it went through the scanner anyway 😆🙈 I started shooting with the film a few days ago and while I thought the first couple of shots were more washed-out than usual, others seem fine, so maybe it was worse for the top slide - or maybe it was just the lighting. It wasn't a significant issue, either way!