It’s very warn and muggy here again today. I have a bunch of Holga pictures that I’d planned to post, but I’m sat in my my office which is currently 31.4°c and don’t have the energy to add them all to the blog. So, instead, here’s a summery picture of a fella in Whitby holding a hotdog. It looks like it was hot on that day too (I can’t recall – it was nearly ten years ago!), but the people in jackets and hoodies perhaps suggest it wasn’t as warm as it is here today.
Another hot and sticky day here again. It’s nothing compared to the temperatures and humidity in other parts of the world, of course, but it’s the UK and we’re not really geared up for much beyond drizzle and overcast skies. One thing we are very adept at, however, is moaning about the weather, whatever shape it comes in. 🙂
Here’s a shot I took during our recent trip to Spain, where it was very warm, but we were on holiday so it didn’t feel the same somehow.
The early morning light, and the deep burgundy and pastel pink shades of the ladies’ coats caught my eye as we passed this scene so I grabbed a quick picture to capture the moment.
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.
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.
It’s been a good day today. Not only did I have the time to take an outing with my camera(s), the weather was also perfect too. This sort of alignment of the fates is a rarity!
I decided to take a day trip to Lincoln. Lincoln is a nice city to wander around with plenty to see and photograph, and it has the added bonus of only being about an hour’s drive away.
The weather forecast had given the impression of clear blue skies which, while better in many regards to flat grey skies, can also be a little uninteresting, but I was blessed with blue skies full of streaks of thin high-altitude cloud, meaning I got the benefit of the good light with the bonus of interesting textures.
I managed to shoot three-and-a-half rolls of film – two-and-a-half colour, and a roll of B&W.
Although it was a great day, there was one small hiccup – I forgot to change the ASA dial on my Olympus OM-10 and shot the entire roll of Agfa APX 100 at 400ASA. This normally wouldn’t be a problem as I’ve pushed film on many occasions before (even if this time it was accidental), but it seems there is very little data out there on pushing Agfa APX 100 beyond 200ASA.
It looks like I can develop it for 25 minutes(!) in Rodinal 1+50, but there are no times for Ilfotec DD-X. There are calculations that can be used to get a rough idea of how long to push films, but I prefer to use tried and tested methods – I think there will be some nice photos on the roll and I don’t want to ruin them with ham-fisted experimentation.
Other alternatives include stand or semi-stand development (but, again, it’s not something I’ve done before, and I’m a bit worried about maintaining the temperature to avoid bromide drag), and splashing out on a bottle of Ilford HC (or HC-110, or one of the other variants) – which also has a recipe for pushing the film two stops. Or rather for pushing Kentmere 100 by two stops (I believe they are the same film stock).
Anyway, I’ll be sure to let my reader know what I decide to do and how I fare. Wish me luck!
Olympus OM-10, E-Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 & Kodak Ultramax. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
