Disappointment

Apologies for the somewhat curtailed post yesterday. I wasn’t a happy man.

Following a pleasant day out at Newark Air Museum on Friday, I set about developing four of the large format photographs I’d shot. After the process was complete and I saw the images as I hung them to dry I was met with immediate disappontment. There were significant faults on the photographs, taking two seperate forms.

Firstly, the scenes I’d been careful to compose were all out of kilter. Objects that were perfectly framed or centred were no longer in the positions I’d intended when I made the pictures. I can lay the blame for this on two factors: First, the tripod centre column was not tightened fully, so I think I must’ve caused it to rotate slightly when inserting the film holders. Second, because I was having difficulty getting the film holders fully into place, requiring additional force and exacerbating the problem with the untightened tripod.

Secondly, despite me thinking the issues I’d had previously with light leaks were behind me, they clearly are not. Each shot exhibited problems with light leaks. I think the proble lies with the camera rather than the film holders or my technique as the light leaks are identical on each shot, despite using several different holders. Upon developing the other four sheets today I sufferd the same issue, more light leaks in the same configuration, except these are worse as the HP5+ is more sensitive than the Fomapan 100 used in the original four shots, making the effect much more pronounced.

Obviously this was a huge disappointment, and to say I was unhappy is cutting it light. It was a 70-mile round trip, plus entry costs, added to the spoiled film. The worse part is that it was the first nice day I’ve had for ages when I’ve had chance to go somewhere farther afield with a camera. I don’t get as much time to do this as I’d like so to have the time wasted to a large degree (and that includes two one-hour film developing sessions) is probably the hardest part to bear.

To try and be positive, I did have a nice day at the museum and took time to look at the exhibits without a camera in front of my face all the time. I also had my Sure Shot Supreme with me and shot about half-a-roll of HP5+ with that, so those will hopefully turn out ok, meaning it won’t be a complete bust, photographically speaking.

I’ve looked at the Fomapan 100 shots again to day and have managed to Lightroom / Photoshop a lot of the light-leaks form the shots and, with some cropping, got a few pictures that are probably worth posting. But they’re not the shots I intended. Whether I’ll be able to recover anything from the more severely spoiled HP5+ photos, I don’t know. I haven’t even bothered to scan them yet, such is my disappointent.

The photo below wasn’t a disappointment – this was taken at Hooton Pagnell a couple of months back and is the entrance to the church. It was quite a tricky exposure, but one I’ve been fortunate enough to make a good job of. Sometimes things work out ok, thankfully.

Bronica ETRSi & Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 PE & Ilford Delta 100. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10 mins 30 secs @ 20°

Taken 5 February 2023.