35mm · Film photography · Photography

How the clocks and bus timetables changing aided my film development

Here in the UK, at 2am this morning, the time switched over from British Summer Time at 2am this morning. This means that, for most people, you put you clocks back an hour before going to bed on the Saturday evening and benefit from an hour longer in bed. Unless, that is, you forget.

This morning I awoke at 9am, which is pretty late for me. During the week my alarm usually goes off before 7am and so, even when I have the opportunity for a lie-in at the weekend, I still tend to wake around 8am or so. So 9am was a particularly good night’s sleep, I thought at the time.

My wife had already gotten up before I woke and I could hear her downstairs in the kitchen, preparing some meals (and yelling at the cats, who were making a mischief of themselves). Glancing at my phone I was saddened to hear of the passing of Matthew Perry, the actor most famous for his portrayal of Chandler Bing in the sitcom Friends. We are fans of Friends in our house and, while I don’t tend to watch it purposefully any more these days, my wife and one of my sons have it on regularly, so it’s part of the fabric of the place, which made news of his death more poignant.

As my dad visits on Sunday mornings, I got myself out of bed, made some breakfast, and got ready for his arrival. When he was about ten minutes later than usual I wondered if something was amiss as, although he sometimes misses the bus and doesn’t come, he always calls me to le me know. Glancing at my watch showed that is was just gone 9:50am, so I looked at my phone to see if he had sent a message or I had a missed call and was confused as to why my phone’s clock said it was an hour earlier than I though. I even went so far as to check the time settings to see if something was set incorrectly. And then I realised what had happened and the reason my dad wasn’t here yet…

And then, about 45 minutes later my dad did call to let me know that the bus timetable had altered and he had missed the bus!

What this meant was that I now had an extra hour or so of free time this morning. I’d already planned on developing some sheets of large format film but now, I thought, now I might also be able to develop a roll of 35mm film too! I rarely develop more than one set of negatives on a single day unless they can be developed at the same time in the same tank, so this was an unusual thing for me (and, I think, a first!).

So, the end result was that I got both sets of developing done and dusted, which I’m happy about. I don’t particularly enjoy developing film. I find it to be a chore, even if I listen to music or podcasts while doing it, so having the second lot out of my hair is a nice feeling.

Today’s photo wasn’t developed by me (as I haven’t yet dipped my toe in the waters of C41 development), it was done by a lab, and shows a fancy yacht moored at the harbour in Malaga. It was another of those photos I caught at golden hour, and the colours have rendered very nicely.

Tatoosh

Nikon F80, Nikkor 28-80mm f.3.5-5.6 AF-D & Kodak Colorplus . Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro

Taken 19 August 2023.