Developing My First Roll of Film at Home!

This adventure began this summer, and only now did I finally get around to developing my first roll of black and white film (Ilford HP5, 400 iso) at home. I was tooooooo scared!

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On the dining room table, on a towel and metal tray, the chemicals and such were laid out. I practiced loading the reel and placing it in the developing tank multiple times. I have a developing bag that I bought, and it, as you may know, replaces the need for a dark room. I found that if I closed my eyes and focused on touch, things were much easier. Of course, when a dog barks suddenly, it does get a little stressful.

The directions I followed were from Peter at prosophos.com, and while my water out of the tap was a little warmer, I am hoping that there is a bit of latitude when it comes to temperature and time.  My husband also helped out, sort of supervising the “now do this!  now do that!” part of it – the first time doing anything is a challenge, no matter how many times you rehearse, eh?

So, now, I have film hanging in the shower stall, drip drying until later this afternoon or early evening, which is when I will scan it to see what I got.

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What excitement to pull out the developed roll! I can see that I got photos – there is contrast, so that means something worked right . . . on this roll, I used the Werra along with green, yellow, and orange filters to see how they affect contrast. Feeling the film, it is not tacky, which means the chemicals were good, too.

So, I leave you with this hint below . . . and will show you the results after I scan them. Stay tuned!

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Morning Spiders

Sounds gross, if you don’t like spiders. I like spiders . . . but not in my house and not on me.

The Sun is Up!

That said, I went out this morning with a new-to-me Spotmatic film camera with a 55mm f1.8 Super Takumar lens, and my cell phone, just in case something happened. I will take the film in later this morning, and perhaps add some images once I get the film and scans back from the lab this afternoon.

Cactus - Fuji Astia 100F

I never use my phone for photography, just because I don’t think of it. If I have the desire to take pictures, I take a camera. My intent was to use up the rest of a roll of Lomography 100 with two goals in mind – see if the camera and lens function – and to see what the film itself is like, having never used it before.

Cholla in the Morning Sun

I walked down the trail, waiting for the sun to come over the horizon to begin backlighting the fields of cacti and trees. Canyon wrens called back and forth, ravens croaked, and things scuttled in the undergrowth. At times, I saw very early hikers out further on the switchbacks dropping into the canyon below.

Web Sweet Web

As the sun came up, I turned around, looking at the beginning of the classic starburst of the sun through the leaves, and checking the beginning of morning backlighting of thorns and leaves, as well as silhouettes of leaves and branches further away. It was then that I noticed all the beautifully perfect spider webs, glinting in the sun – a real neighborhood of garden spiders in classical webs, centered like Xs. It was stunning.

Sunrise Web

I may have gotten a few good shots on film – don’t know until I see. I did shoot with my cell phone, and while the images are not really good, per se, they did catch a memory of a beautiful morning.