Author: Eddy Young

I came across a sheet of film negatives that I had apparently forgotten about. All the frames are candid pictures of P taken sometime between 2008 and 2010. Given the sense of reset brought about by COVID in 2020, the discovery feels almost archaelogical. You can even see P using her Blackberry on the train.

(The negatives had all manners of scratch from being dumped at the bottom of my film box file.)

You would think that, with more daylight hours, summer is ideal for outdoor photography, but it really is not. Trees turn into masses of green glistening with sunlight and put everything else in shade. The sun rises too early—four o’clock, really?—and sets too late—around dinner time with P. And when I gather enough courage to venture out, it’s a long and hot uncomfortable walk.

Thankfully, my local neighbourhood has been a good provider of my shutter therapy. Last Saturday, I monitored the outside conditions until a couple hours before sunset when they became just right for me to leave the cool of the house. I walked through the nearby retail park on to Farnborough IQ business park. There, I went through the usual cycle of avoiding the security guards, being spotted on CCTV, and eventually being caught and told by the guards that it was “a private estate”, that photography was not allowed, that the Heritage area was not National Heritage, and that I definitely did not have a right to take pictures. I, however, had the privilege to do so as long as I did not loiter. Still, I enjoyed a nice wander around the disused buildings that played such a big part in the history of British aviation.

I brought the Minolta X-300 and a few rolls of Fomapan 200 black-and-white film. I hadn’t used this camera for a long time and wanted to exercise its internals. I relied on the internal lightmeter readings to expose all the shots, and so I was pleased when perfect pictures came out of development with Rodinal 1+50.

Here are some shots from the day.

Some pictures from a photo walk around the neighbourhood.

Shot with a Nikon FM2 on bulk-rolled Fomapan 200, developed with Rodinal 1+50 for 10.5 minutes.

The unexpected 14th frame…

I see this tree in my rear view mirror every time I drive back from the supermarket. I have seen it countless times since it’s been pollarded at the beginning of spring and have seen its bare branches start to grow leaves, becoming more beautiful every time. Then, its allure peaked and it started to turn into just another tree. So, tonight I took a photo of it before it was completely ordinary.

It still looks much prettier in the rear view mirror.

I pass these two sights every evening when I walk back home from the station. The tree top is usually the roosting place of two or three pigeons and is also usually bathed in sunset colours. On cold winter nights, the Topps Tiles entrance door is striking by the glowing yellow lines on either side and their reflections on the tarmac.

I tried to capture those, but the conditions were not ideal: too much cloud cover blocking the rays of the setting sun and too much cloud cover messing up the twilight.

Nevertheless, I waited more than 90 minutes to shoot those, so I’m going to post them anyway.

I’ll try the shoots again another time.

These trees reminded me of the hooves of some giant beasts.

P and I hiked about 30 km on Saturday and Sunday. It was quite the work-out, especially since it had been a few weeks since our last long walk and it was sunny and hot.

I took a picture of this tree for no reason other than I liked the colours.

Yesterday I loaded a roll of Fomapan 200 film in the Nikon FM2 before setting out for a long hike. The FM2 mostly remained in the bag, and the D850 was put to use instead. I’ve had it back from Nikon for about a week now. No free lens wrap gift this time, but the re-repair by Nikon is perfect—the camera is like new.

In hindsight, it was silly to plan for black-and-white photos when spring is bringing out such nice colours in nature.

What do you know, it turns out that C41 chemicals last a very long time. My solution of Bellini Foto developer was two years old and had been used with 16 rolls before I discarded it yesterday. I suspect it went bad only because the plastic bottle cracked and let in air, which caused the chemical to oxidise.

WIth an exposed roll of Kodak Ultramax already loaded in the developing tank, I prepared a fresh solution of the same developer from a bottle of concentrate that had been stored for more than a year. But without new bleach and fixer, I took the gamble of re-using two-year-old solutions. I transferred the chemicals to new bottles replacing the broken ones and warmed them to 41 degrees Celcius in a water bath. I tempered the film in the tank to 38 degrees for 3 minutes, poured in the fresh developer at 41 degrees, agitated frequently with a figure-eight motion for 3.5 minutes, poured in the bleach, agitated continuously for 45 seconds, poured in the fixer, agitated for 120 seconds, and finally rinsed with fresh stabiliser. I hanged the negative to dry and stowed the chemicals in the usual storage place that gives them their long shelf life—the dark spot under the stairs.

What came out are probably the best negatives I’ve produced since starting C41 development.

I scanned the tab showing the exposure guide for Kodak Ultramax 400 colour film, also realising that the reciprocal to be applied in the Sunny 16 rule is 1/250 s for ISO 400 film, and not 1/500 s as I did.