Another dip into my (recent-ish) archive with a shot taken at the start of the year which I’d not published on Flickr until a couple of days ago. It shows a weather-worn fencepost beside one of the footpaths near Baslow Edge. Not sure why I didn’t publish it before – I possibly had a surplus of images to upload or something.
I ventured up town again today and finished the roll of HP5+ in my recently acquired OM-2. I felt much more inspired than I did on yesterday’s outing, although I’m still not convinced I have anything great to show for my efforts. I think that, as this has been my first roll through this camera, that I’m subconsciously treating it as a “test” roll and as such didn’t want to invest too much effort in the photos in case there’s an issue with the camera (not that I have any reason to think there might be). Anyway, the roll is shot now and I’ll hopefully get it developed tomorrow.
I had the day off work today and had planned a trip out into the countryside. Alas, the weather had other plans and the day was one of those with a solid sheet of blank grey sky. To make matters worse it also kept raining. Not proper, people-with-umbrellas rain though, but the fine, almost mist-like, rain that just hangs about in the air and gets onto every surface – especially cameras and the front elements of lenses!
So I changed my plans and drove into town instead. Today would be my first trip into the city centre since the non-essential retailers were allowed to open their stores last Monday (and only the second time since lockdown began in March!). Although early, I’d expected more people and traffic that there was – having seen pictures of crowded streets and shops in the media, I thought there might be something similar afoot – but there were very few people about. More than my previous, pre-shops-re-opening visit, but still not many – not even many people travelling into work. The largest groups of workers I saw were construction workers, of whom there were a significant number apparent around town.
Today’s trip was different to the last though in one simple way – I was uninspired. Whereas on my previous visit last weekend I saw photographs everywhere, today I saw few, and the ones I made (I shot around half a 36 exposure roll of HP5+) felt for the sake of it rather than anything I expect to be good when they are developed. Usually, shooting a full roll of film is no problems, but today I left defeated.
It was the first outing for my newly acquired Olympus OM-2 too and perhaps getting to grips with the slightly different fuctionality when compared to my familiar OM-1, had an impact on my photograph making. I’m hoping I might get to finish the roll over the weekend (and I have an extra day off on Monday too) and that the next outing will see me in better spirits.
Today’s photographs are from the dust-spotted Fomapan roll of doom that I’ve spoken about in recent posts. It took me ages to get rid of all the speckles, so I hope someone likes them. 🙂
Yashica Mat 124G & Fomapan 100. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8 mins @ 20°.
I mentioned yesterday how I’d spent ages dust-spotting some Fomapan 100 negatives. A number of people replied to the post, so I thought I’d give a bit of a follow-up today.
I’ve now completed the chore. Well, on the photos I intend to upload, at least. It was an absolute pain in the backside. It would seem that I’d clear all the spots, only to then notice just as many secondary spots, and each image took a good half-an-hour at least of clicking away to remove them – and even then I’m sure there are many that I’ve missed. But I think I’d gone past caring by that point!
As I’ve not had the same problems with dust spots on any other rolls recently (I always dust the work area carefully before scanning and, while some dust always sneaks in, I rarely get lots of it), I began to wonder if it was something to do with the either the film specifically, or perhaps my development. All my home developed films have been processed in Ilfotec DD-X, then Ilford stop-bath and rapid fixer. The developer is always freshly prepped for a one-shot use and, while the stop-bath and fixer get re-used, they should both be fine for a little while yet (they’ve had around 10 rolls through them). A roll of HP5+ that was developed after the roll of Fomapan shows no signs of the same problem.
An example of the issue. This is an enlargement of one of the frames that shows clearly the speckling of white spots.
So I decided to look at the last roll of Fomapan 100 I shot – this was a couple of months back – and found that it too had the same issue with dust. I decided to search online for “white spots on Fomapan 100” and it led me to a few places where people would report similar problems – sometimes going so far as to describe it as a “Milky Way” effect. I’m not sure I would go that far, but I got the gist. One post had some example pictures whic matchen mine very closely in terms of the spotting problem. It seems to be an intermittent issue.
I’ve now come to the opinion that I might have a bad batch of Fomapan 100, which is a bit of a pain as I bought ten rolls of it! I guess I’ll have to try another roll and see what it gets me. While the film is still useable, the post-processing required to get rid of the spots is not something to be relished.
Oh well, there are worse things happening in the world, so I’m sure I can live with this minor inconvenience.
Here’s one of the shots from the roll that has had a lengthy clean-up applied.
Yashica Mat 124G & Fomapan 100. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8 mins @ 20°.
Having just spent the best part of an hour getting rid of thousands of annoying dust specs on some Fomapan 100 negatives, I’m about done for the evening. Therefore this will be a succinct post where I just add this photo of a gravestone with crucifixion design. It was one of several in the churchyard, making it look like some sort of miniature recreation of Golgotha or something.
Yashica Mat 124G & Ilford Pan-F Plus. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8 mins @ 20°.
I made a few photos of these flowers. They were beside the footpath I took on a walk a few of weeks ago – this one with the Holga, and a few others with my F80 and a macro lens. I’ve yet to have the F80 shots developed as I still have a couple of frames left on that roll, but I suspect they’ll look quite different to this Holga photograph which has given me a somewhat unexpected, but nontheless pleasant, low-key result.
Although I’ve titled the post (and photograph) “Daisies”, I’m not actually sure if that’s what they are. While the look of the flowers is the same, and the colours match, these are far larger than the daisies that sprout in our garden if I’ve not mowed the grass in a while. I’m sure they must be some relation though. Great Auntie Daisy perhaps? 🙂
Keeping the theme going, here’s another gate shot – this one from my walk in the Moss Valley and shot on expired Shanghai GP3. In contrast with yesterdays photograph, this one was incident metered and the difference can be seen quite clearly – the gate is well lit, but the shaded area under the tree has fallen mostly to shadow.
In fairness, my simplistic two-reading average method that I used on the shot shown yesterday might not have held up as well here as this gate was in full, bright, sunlight (and the photo has already had some work to drop the highlights), so might have been noticably overexposed had I used the same technique.
Yashica Mat 124G & Shanghai GP3 (expired). Ilfotec DD-X 1+9 10 mins @ 24°.
Keeping to the theme of gates that I’ve loosely adhered to over the past few days, here’s another one that I made (the photo, not the gate!) during a walk I took on Spring Bank Holiday. It was the first photo I took during the walk and marked the place where the footpath left a field and rose up the embankment of a disused railway line. I’d have made the photo even had the gate been pristine, but I was especially taken by its somewhat tired and well-used appearance.
Normally, when metering for photos with meter-less cameras (the Yashica Mat does have a meter, but I’ve never used it) I take an incident reading. As long as I’m stood in similar light to my subject then it tends to work out well. Today’s photograph is one of the relatively few I’ve made using spot metering. The main reason for this is that I don’t have a proper spot meter. The Sekonic L-208 that I use is fairly basic but accurate in most regards, but the spot meter has an somewhat wide angle of 40° IIRC and no means to aim it precisely unless the subject is right in front of you.
This photo was an occasion where I thought spot metering would give a better overall exposure. The gate and foreground was in full daylight, but the footpath up the embankment was in much deeper shade, so I decided to take a spot meter reading for both and then average it to get an exposure that would give me some details in the shadows without blowing out the brighter parts of the scene. Maybe not Ansel Adams levels of technique, but I think it worked well enough in this case.
Yashica Mat 124G & Ilford Pan-F Plus. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8 mins @ 20°.
It’s Friday evening again and I have to say that I’m very thankful for that fact. I’ve had a very busy week at work once again and am really looking forward to relaxing a little over the weekend. Hopefully I might get out to make some photographs – I have around six frames of 135 Ilford XP2 sat in my F70 that I want to shoot, certainly, which can then be sent off for developing along with a roll of Kodak Gold I finished a couple of weeks ago.
The weather doesn’t look particularly great on either day this weekend, but I can live with that – although boring flat grey skies or torrential downpours might put me off. I shall wait and see I suppose. If all else fails I’ve got a huge pile of photobooks to catch up on.
Today’s picture completes a hattrick of consecuitive shots from the same roll of Shanghai GP3 that I’ve posted photos from the past couple of days, this one being the last one on the roll. The backing paper had bled through on this one (and a couple of others), most notably in the sky, so I’ve fixed it in Photoshop (although it was a bit of a quick’n’dirty job if I’m honest).
Yashica Mat 124G & Shanghai GP3 (expired). Ilfotec DD-X 1+9 10 mins @ 24°.
Following on directly from yesterday’s photograph, both in title (although this one’s a tad less evocative…), subject matter, and in timing – today’s photo being the next frame on the roll.
One of my ambitions this year is to make a book (or more likely a zine) of some of my photography. I’ve thrown my hat in the ring for a zine-swap with a group of other photographers where we each produce a zine and then send a copy on to everyone taking part, so we all get a nice little selection of each others photography in physical form. I’m still at the stage of figuring out both a) what subject to choose, and b) how the hell to make a zine. I have a few months yet though, so still time unless I get to too much procrastinating.
Anyway, what I suppose I’m trying to say is that perhaps a selection of photos of gates, fences. and stiles might make for a nice collection of photographs. Stuff like yesterday and today’s photos.
Yashica Mat 124G & Shanghai GP3 (expired). Ilfotec DD-X 1+9 10 mins @ 24°.
Steel City Snapper photography 