The house needed it’s top-to-bottom celan today so the morning was taken up with that uninviting task. After that was done, I needed to mow the grass. Then, as it’s been a nice day today, I decided that I would go on a walk after completion of the morning’s chores. After being in a poor frame of mind when making photos while out on a walk a couple of days ago, I was hopeful that I might feel a little more inspired today. I think that one of the reasons for trying to make more pictures was that I could then develop the roll this weekend – I already have a roll of Delta 400 sat waiting and was thinking about getting them both processed at the same time. I’m not sure if this impatience is necessarily the best reason to try and shoot photographs…

As the weather was nice, and as it’s the weekend, there were quite a lot of people out, so it was a case of playing 2020’s no.1 game – Social Distancing. I kinda feel I’m trapped, Tron-style, in a game of Pac-Man. Except instead of avoiding ghosts, I’m trying to not collide with or get too close to any other humans. I wonder how many extra miles I’m walking as a result of all the times I cross the street to avoid oncoming people? Probably not many…

Anyway, my walk took me on a slightly different route and onto some heathland that I’ve not visited many times in the past. It didn’t offer much in the way of readily-available photographic opportunities unfortunately, but I’ve got some photographs of wildflowers, fenceposts and, er, barbed wire on the roll. Maybe they will look nice when I develop them…

I finished the film on my walk. I was slightly surprised when it ended at around frame #34, so that might be something else to look out for when I see the negatives. I don’t think I mis-loaded it, so I don’t know why it reached the end a couple of frames early.

My route home took me through Rother Valley – somewhere I’ve mostly been avoiding for fear of higher numbers of people enjoying the park. The weather and weekend meant that my fears were confirmed and there were a signigicant number of people there. Not as many as might be expected in normal times, and not so many that it wasn’t easy to avoid close proximity, but I’ll definitely avoid the place in future unless the weather is foul, or I go very early.

Before writing this post, I decided to load my film into the developing tank, ready to sort out tomorrow. My plan had been to develop two rolls of B&W 35mm together but, after getting the first roll (the Delta 400) onto the spiral and into the tank, I had a sudden thought that I best check the times for both rolls. I’d gotten it into my head that Delta and HP5+ have the same dev times, but was now doubting myself so, after making sure the first roll was safely light-sealed in the tank, I removed my arms from the changing bag and checked Massive Dev Chart. This was the right thing to do as HP5+ needs and extra minute over the Delta. Phew!

It’ll now mean two seperate developing sessions (plus all the boring cleaning up that is necessary afterwards – I’m making sure everything is thoroughly washed and dried after I’ve finished to ensure I don’t run into difficultie in future due to badly cared for equipment), but I’m in no great rush. I think I’ll wait until next weekend to develop the second roll now.

I thought today’s picure befitted the post as, thanks to the positioning of the lights in the store where the strange “Superman in drag” mannequin was stood, it looks like it’s in the process of forming a thought-bubble, with the though about to pop into view. Maybe that thought is “Do Delta 400 and HP5+ have the same dev times?” 🙂

Canon Sure Shot Supreme & Ilford Delta 400.

Taken on 14 March 2020