One of the landmarks near Whitwell is Steetley Dolomite, a large quarry and refining plant to the south of the village. The large chimney can be seen from some distance and, even when the rest of the works is obscured by the low hills in the area, the top of the chimney is often still visible.
The two shots below were taken from the same spot, with my stabilised Tamron 28-300mm zoom lens earning its keep.
A mini selection of buildings I found interesting when wandering around Whitwell. The first building contains apartments but was originally a pub named The Boot and Shoe.
Again, the semi-stand development worked well for these shots.
A few weeks back I shot a roll of Agfa APX 100 during a trip to Lincoln. It was only as I went to rewind the roll of film after shooting all 36 frames that I realised I hadn’t set the ISO dial when I loaded the camera, and that the meter had been set to 400asa for every shot.
If I had been shooting Ilford HP5+ of something, I would have just push procesed the film -something I have done with good success in the past – and, indeed, I thought this would be my plan for the APX 100 too. Unfortunately, there is much less data available on push processing this particular film stock, at least beyond a one stop push to 200asa.
Asking around for advice resulted in a number of recommendations for stand or semi-stand development and, after looking into this further, I decided the semi-stand approach might be the best approach. However, as this would be the first time I’d ever attempted this method of developing film, and as I had an idea there would be some shots from my Lincoln trip that would be worth keeping, I decided that I would have a trial run on another roll of film first.
So, a week after visiting Lincoln, I took a shorter trip to the village of Whitwell and shot another roll of APX 100 at 400asa so I could test out semi-stand developing.
I have two developers to hand at present – Ilford DD-X, and Agfa Rodinal. As there was far more information available on performing semi-stand development with Rodinal, I opted for that. It also has the advantage of being much cheaper than DD-X. My research suggested that a 1+100 solution would be the best option, with a couple of extra millilitres of developer added to compensate for the push processing , so I made up a mixture of 500ml water, with 7ml of Rodinal (again, based on research online). This is more developer than I would need for a single roll of 35mm film, but I wasn’t sure how much extra developer to add to 300ml to compensate for the push as the online advice had stated a 500ml volume of water.
I’d also read that a pre-wash would be a good idea for semi-stand, so before adding the developer I gave it a soak in 20° water for 5 minutes, agitating it for a couple of minutes. I’m not sure if the agitation was necessary at all, but I didn’t think it would hurt.
After emptying the pre-wash water, I added the developer and agitated the developing tank with inversions for 1 minute. I then gave it a tap on the counter and left it to stand undisturbed for the next 30 minutes. After this first half an hour I gave it another single firm inversion, another firm tap on the counter to remove any air bubbles, and then let it stand for a further 30 minutes.
At the end of the hour I emptied the developer, used 20° water as a stop bath for 1 minute, and then a further 5 minutes in the fixer. After this I washed the negatives in tap water using the Ilford method, soaked them for a couple of minutes in a wetting agent solution, spun the reel in a salad spinner to remove most of the water, and then hung them to dry for 3 hours.
I was very happy to see nice looking negatives as I removed the film from the reels. They maybe looked slightly thin, but nothing to cause great concern and I was able to get results I was happy with when scanning and post processing the photographs.
The final results are pretty good, I think. There’s maybe a little more grain than there would have been had I shot and developed the film at 100asa, but it’s nothing I’m concerned about, and the images are sharp, have good contrast, and the highlights and shadows contain plenty of detail.
I don’t think I’ll use semi-stand development all the time, but I will certainly use it again in some situations. I’m already curious about shooting a single roll of film at different exposure settings, for instance, and I have a roll of Fompan 400 that I plan on shooting with my Holga sometime soon which I might develop as semi-stand.
This is probably the last of the Barcelona pictures that I’ll share on the blog (unless I decide to publish some more of the digital shots I took, many of which are sat on my computer largely untouched).
Something different coming tomorrow… (that makes it sound a lot more exciting than it will actually be, lol).
Olympus OM-10, E-Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 & Kodak Ultramax. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
A bit on a picture dump today. These are a bunch of photos I too while wandering around Barcelona with my wife. As I mentioned yesterday, I rarely get my best pictures when out with my another person, so I tend to grab photos when I get the chance but without necessarily spending the time and effort needed to get anything particularly accomplished. This makes it sound like I’m some sort of perfectionist figure the rest of the time, and I’m really not – I shoot a lot of pictures, often quite quickly – but I am able to focus on what I’m doing exclusively, which tends to produce better results.
Something good that happened today…
Speaking of shooting a lot of pictures, I rattled through a full 36 exposure roll of Agfa APX 100 during a walk this morning. I drove out to the village of Whitwell, which is about a 20 minute drive away with the singular reason to get through the full roll so I could test semi-stand development. The last roll of this film, which I shot in Lincoln last weekend, was accidentally underexposed by two stops and there are few available recipes for standard development in this situation with this particular film (at least with the developers I have to hand), so a number of people suggested stand or semi-stand development as the beast option.
As I’ve never attempted this process before, and as I think I might have some nice photographs from the Lincoln trip, I decided to underexpose another roll in the same way and make my first attempt on a slightly less valuable set of pictures (although I think there will probably be some nice shots on this Whitwell roll too – I didn’t just shoot random rubbish).
Anyway, to cut a long story short, I attempted semi-stand development in Rodinal today and the negatives look good. The proof will be when I get to scan them, but they look decent to my eye at this stage at least. I’ll write a proper post about this when I have some of the pictures ready to share.
Olympus OM-10, E-Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 & Kodak Ultramax. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
This location had a lot of potential for interesting pictures, the mirrored tiles on the curved overhang casting all sorts of interesting reflections. It’s a location which, had I been there alone, I would have spent some time working to try and find the best shots.
This sort of activity isn’t really possible when I’m with someone else though, as I quickly become conscious that I’m keeping that person (my wife in this case, with little interest in photography) hanging around and I begin to feel selfish. It’s why I almost always prefer solo photography.
While my wife is not a photographer, she did spot this scene at the same time as me and commented that it would make a good picture. Perhaps I’m rubbing off on her. 🙂
Olympus OM-10, E-Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 & Kodak Ultramax. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Sagrada Família, or to give its full name: Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família is the largest unfinished Catholic church in the world. Designed by fames Spanish architect, Antoni Gaudi, work began on consrtuction one-hundred-and-forty-three years ago, on 19 March 1882. Gaudi himself died in 1926 and was buried in the church’s crypt when just twenty-five percent of the building was complete. Work is currently expected to complete in 2026, marking the anniversary of Gaudi’s death.
I’ve visited the church on two occasions now, and on both was unable to go inside. On the first occasion I didn’t want to wait for an entrance slot – visitors must book tickets to enter – and on the second visit there were no tickets available whatsoever on the day. Had I planned in advance, I’m sure I’d have been ok but, if I’m honest, I don’t think I was really that concerned. While I’m sure the church interiors are breathtaking, the thought of being in there with hundreds of other tourists isn’t something that appeals, and ideally it’s the sort of place the deserves time to experience all it has to offer – something I wouldn’t have had as my wife had little interest in going inside, and I would have felt guilty leaving her sat outside while I took my time to explore.
Maybe one day I’ll visit properly, but I’m not going to hold my breath.
Olympus OM-10, E-Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 & Kodak Ultramax. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
This is possibly my favourite film photo I made while in Barcelona in December. I like the way I managed to compose it, the timing, the colours (those splashes of red), and the shallow depth of field.
Olympus OM-10, E-Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 & Kodak Ultramax. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
It’s that time of year when I take a day off work and watch the Oscars. Because they are broadcast live in the early hours of the morning here in the UK (and as I pretty much always have a need to get up early the next day, even if I have the day off it seems), I resort to recording the show and then watching it the morning after. This requires a careful media blackout when I wake up to avoid spoilers, but I usually manage this successfully, and this year was no exception.
I didn’t start watching it until 9:30am and, because it’s such a long show, it didn’t finish until 1:30pm (taking into consideration my fast-forwarding through some of the breaks, but also pausing it to get drinks, snacks, and lunch).
Of all the main nominated films this year, I’ve only gotten around to seeing two of them – Dune Part 2, and The Substance – so will have to try and catch up on the others when they appear on one of the streaming services. Sadly I don’t get to the movies as much as I once did – before we had kids we’d regularly see two or three films in a week at the cinema – and don’t really get enough time to watch that many at home either (not without sacrificing other activities, at least). Maybe one day, when I’m retired, I’ll have enough time to do all the things I’d like to…
Olympus OM-10, E-Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 & Kodak Ultramax. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Steel City Snapper photography 