Film project – 2 months progress

Hi all,

During January 2017 I started the 180 days of shooting film project and boy has it taken a while for an update, sorry!  The delay is due to waiting to find a suitable supplier, that fell within my limited budget and now, finally some scans from the first 2 rolls are here.

The developer

Searching through the waste void of the internet, a very reasonable supplier was advertised with a very long history of experience, the costs were great and they also provided a decent sized scan too.

Home developing

When starting this project the intention was always to learn and try developing film at home, after purchasing the chemicals, however, these were only for black & white.  Various online sources said it is a simple chemical process and fun to do.

So how did it go you might be wondering?

The whole event was a little frustrating, just having chemicals and equipment was certainly not enough, practise will definitely be the key hear.  Most of the process seemed fine, timing the changes in chemicals and agitations etc.  But one of the elements of this process was not considered – PRACTISE!!!!

Feeding the film in to the cassette seemed okay since the process involved using a daylight tank, however the damn thing got stuck twice and since it was opened to sort this, the film was exposed and ruined (apart from a small section that was stuck in the film holder).

Therefore, lesson learned:

• use a practise roll first next time
• keep practising rolling the cassette
• stay calm

The results

The company who did the developing were very prompt and delivered as requested, however, they never labelled which film was which when sending the scans or negatives back.  It was hard to remember which films were sent off, as some were old expired stuff, so I honestly don’t know any settings whatsoever.

Lesson learn:

• label films for developing company
• take some data down when shooting

Looking through the scans, they seem very grainy and some exposures seem out, colours are okay in some but not great in others, therefore, because there appears to be no consistency it’s not clear if the film is at fault or the bloke behind the camera (myself).

Next

Regularly shooting on the Olympus has been a privilege but like any photographer, it is just a tool and going through a “rut” recently has limited shooting opportunities (other than my family).

All artists go through this lack of confidence or ideas, some of this is brought on by financial circumstances (having sold lot’s of equipment recently), which has brought me to question whether the story should end and give up on imagery all together.

The project is continuing for now, despite any negative vibes and there are at least 5 more rolls ready for developing and another with only a few shots, so that’s quite a bit of activity in a couple of months.  The Bronica medium format is ready for action too, despite this lull, some ideas are penned down, so just need the inspiration to make these happen.

Keep checking back here to see the work, although images will always appear on Instagram, only a small selection will make it here (due to  time,space and money).

Shoot, learn and inspire, analogue is good for the soul.