Death by developer

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Vending machine death by developer

Don't ask what went wrong. I'm not sure. I've had this in the archive for a while (along with countless other images - Adrian and Jon can attest to this) and I like it a lot.  Not so much the blown out huge white bit but the vending machine part. The way the light from the machine is blown out and the developer has stained the neg and run down to where the light is making it spill out. I must be in happy accident mode because everything I'm working on has loads of grain, light leaks and other imperfections that just seem to make the image. This is probably why you see so little of the pin sharp digital stuff I shoot (not very interesting).

Enoshima, Pan F and Diafine

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Click the image to start the slideshow (2 slides)

On my little adventure to Enoshima last weekend at 4am, not only did I manage to get sick but I tried a Film / Developer combination I hadn't seen before.

I've used Ilford Pan F on occasion and, while expensive, have liked the results I've gotten so far. My trip to Enoshima was finally a chance to shoot something at ISO100 (developing with Diafine pushes it a stop to 100) so I thought I'd try it developed in Diafine.

Well, as you can see by the results, it's pretty damn dark. But, looking at the shot of the old man (second slide), I couldn't have really exposed it more or the shirt would have been blown. The background at the time was not at all dark and the day was overcast so there were no shadows so in theory more of the background should be visible.

If you are going to use this combination, make sure you don't have any dark area's in your shot or you're likely to get blacks.

47 minutes

Jim O’Connell. The man seems to have a knowledge on photography that knows no bounds.I've been trying different developers for a while and have found the process a huge time sink. Half of me enjoys it and the other half just can't stand sitting around Agitating every minute. So, over a flickr on the Magnum group (no, the other one) where we seem to have all kinds of crazy discussions, the question came up about Rodinal by Jon about how long to develop for. Jim answers "For that, mix 1/100 with tap water, mix well, pour it in, shake it like a martini for 5-10 seconds and then let it sit for an hour before fixing and washing." but I remember hearing from either him or second hand that 1 hour didn't cut it when he changed to a new batch of chemical so he dropped the time to 47 minutes. So I tried it on 2 rolls of TMax 400 @400 and they "look" like they came out fine. Also tried it on 2 rolls of TMax 400 @800 and THEY look like they are ok too. The real test was to see if I could do a roll of TMax 100 and Tmax 400 at the same time. Result! I can't confirm this 100% until they dry and I've done a few scans but it's looking promising. I think the moral of the story is, if you have a question about B+W film dev just ask Jim. Stay tuned for results.