Expired developer or something else?

Ok, this has happened to me before. Last time I sincerely thought this simply was the developer gone bad. And it really was the case. However I have no idea what is the reason of the very weird background this time...

Bad developer? Too much fixing? Something else? I have asked the question on Flickr. Let's see what will come back...

Adox CHS Art 100

After my previous misfortunes with the Adox I had a much better luck this time. As I was shipping almost illegally my photography chemicals to Dubai and had nightmares about getting jailed I decided I will only go for essential stuff - like developer and fixer. So I no longer have a stop bath, but let's face it - you can obviously live without it.

The other issue with Dubai is - it is hot. Like really! So stand development is not really an option here as temperature of the tank can easily creep up while you wait for it to be developed.

The above leaves me with the only option of going for normal development. This time I didn't presoak the film and developed it for only 6 minutes, didn't use a stop bath and actually the results turned out quite sharp - with some grain at the lower speeds and without getting burnt areas like last time.

Not quite black and white

Some time ago after a cry to all friends and relatives I am looking for old film cameras I got an almost brand new Smena. 

Now the specifics of a Smena is that there is absolutely no way to find out what the speed and aperture should be set to. The film advance mechanism is very funny where you rewind the film until you think you have rewind enough. Guesstimation to the max!

What happens you end up with a few shots getting overlaid. 

I actually love all of them. Technique aside I have a feeling 'art' happens when you don't think about it, you let go of too much thinking and let Fortuna & Inspiration do their job.

More stand development

As I am running low on developer and being a bit lazy as well I thought I will develop the roll of Rollei 100 doing stand development. I am fairly pleased with the experience given Rollei 100 is not amongst my favourite films and also my previous experience with it was mostly grain and burnt areas. This time though I got very clear film and quite good shadows. very little grain as well.

There is a bit of fogging which is I suspect the result of the developer being slightly warm and also London being quite muggy and warm yesterday which probably has resulted to the developer going up to 21 degrees while standing.

It has also been a very pleasant suprise to see how well it behaves at low light and slow speeds. Sharp! Sharp, ladies and gentlmen! This was shot at 1.7/30!

I developed this in R09 deluting it 1 to 100 and leaving it stand for 60 min and agitating in the first 30 seconds and once at 30 minutes. I didn't use any stop bath, only water and fixer for 5 minutes. 

Flying high

Autumn in black and white

Late London autumn looks surprisingly good in B&W. And a Kodak 400TX is an excellent film to take it.

Patience is a virtue...

... especially when you do film photography. I haven't developed a single film in 2011 due to many different reasons, but mainly because I didn't feel like it. 

I have now stocked up on fresh developer, my Pentax mirror is no longer stuck, days are long and I have found new inspiration in the fact I will be leaving London in August to a sandier, sunnier, warmer part of the world - the Middle East and Dubai. This will most deffinately affect my film photography mostly due to the fact I am not quite certain on whether B&W chemistry is as easily available as in London and second because I am not quite sure on what is there to take pictures of. But this will show later on. 

As of now, I still have 6 more weeks in London, enough film and developer and enough energy and inspiration to get out. 

Going back to the patience bit. Here is why: 

Do you see the top left corner? Or should I rather say: do you see the lack of any image in the top left corner? Here is the story. This is the first film I developed since November and the spiral I was using felt rather sticky towards the end of rolling the film onto it, so I thought: Whatever, I'll just roll out the film and roll it around the spiral. Big mistake... The film got stuck to each other and as I also didn't presoak it the developer simply couldn't get there... So there you go. Next time - patience. It will eventually get there.  

On another note. This is Delta 100 film. Love it! And given it is currently on a summer sale price at Silverprint might get a couple of rolls for portraits this summer! 

A few more images from the same film. All taken during my resent trip to Germany and France. 

I especially love this last one. It happened because the film was stuck and wouldn't rewind properly. I have found with a few other film that for some reason the spool in the Pentax doesn't take them in as easily as the Acros or 400TX. But sometimes those faults just play nicely together! :)

"ночь, улица, фонарь..."

My Pentax has a stuck mirror, which means I haven't shot a single roll of film in the past three months. The good news is that it might be fixable.
My computer has died. Hopefully I will be able to recover my archive of digital photos. The good news is that all my negatives can always be rescanned.
This is an image I took in Soho on a walk late evening in November. It was already dark in the evening so I didn't think that anything will come out of a 100 ISO film, but there you are. Handheld, 100 ISO Acros. I love this film. As much as I love my Pentax. I am ready to marry the person who manages to fix it.

On Christmas Day

I took this on Christmas Day last year. It has been a good year. I learned how to develop and print B&W, I have been experimenting with film, got new cameras, took some great pictures, shot and put together my first photo story.
I still have a long way to go before I am able to produce the images that are in my head. For the year to come I want to wish for myself patience and courage to find and shoot those images.
To everyone who has been reading this experiment, thank you for stopping by and my best wishes for the coming year.
Ira

Photography links

I did a course on Documentary Photography back in summer at Zoom-In and one of the advices the tutor gave us back than was to look to as many photographs as possible, to talk about the things we like and what makes us attracted to a story.

So I have started collecting photography blogs and blogs that publish photographs that I find inspirational. I am mostly interested in documentary, reportage and portrait photography so these are the reason that dictate my choices. And as sharing is caring below is my list. I also share random things in my Google Reader

The 'big' ones:
- Boston.com the Big Picture is usually a source of stunning images with great captions and I particularly enjoy looking at what images are chosen to illustrate a story
- the NY Times Lens blog also has a 'photos of the day' section, however what I truly enjoy is the great interviews and 'behind the image' stories they publish
- Magnum Today's Pictures - they are just stunning images, each and every.
- the MSNBC photo blog - sort of similar to the Big Picture but also with great comments on how an image has been taken
- The Guardian has a most fantastic photography section: articles and images
The 'personal' ones:
- Dmitri Kasterine's portraits and the stories behind them are a good inspiration on how to approach strangers about photographing them
- Brian Ferry is a place for inspiration and interesting links
- Lubri's blog - provocative and sometimes NSFW
- Miro - I don't really have a qualification for this one, but I love how subtle without being pretentious his images are and his way of telling stories and putting pictures together
- Jamie - pretty, that's the one word I have. Lot's of analogue pictures and a great series called 24 hours where Jamie captures 24 hours in 24 exposures
- Kolcho - I would qualify these as documentary shots. No text, just images.
- Ivan's - he does both film and digital and loves taking pictures of benches.

The ones in Bulgarian:
- Crop from Capital and the Big Picture from Dnevnik - the only Bulgarian photography blogs I know for great documentary and reportage photography
- SimpleStudio - I do love the blog and all the Nikon reviews
- Kaladan - mostly images, big ones, and with captions that are always so to the point.

And of course there is Flickr where I can spend hours and hours, but unfortunately don't really have the time always as even the above links manage to take quite a bit of time in my reader.