Now that I have a fair bit of my back story sorted, let's jump to the present and talk about my current film photography activities. You didn't think my jump to digital would see me abandon the joys of film, did you? Of course it hasn't, I enjoy film more than ever and a recent event has given me an excuse to use some of my camera's all at the same time. It has been sheer, unfettered Bliss! Read on....
For the last few years the film photography community has been having a bit of fun courtesy of Emmet Brown, proprietor of the excellent film photography website https://emulsive.org/ and friends who have been encouraging the film community to get out and about with a series of “Parties” through the year. The idea behind these parties is that a film is chosen for everyone to use, dates are set and we get on with it. It’s all designed to be fun and encourages us to experiment and learn the capabilities of the chosen film stock in the camera’s we own. One of those parties is the FP4 Party to get folks using Ilford FP4 Plus 125 black and white film. I was recently given some Ilford FP4 that expired in 2003 and it was the perfect opportunity to use some and learn about developing my own black and white film at home.
Week one of the FP4 Party is photography week and I loaded my trusty Pentax SP500 SLR and my Olympus 35RC rangefinder with a roll of Ilford FP4 in each. I got some welcome advice from the good folks on the Negative Positives Film Photography Podcast group on facebook about using expired film and, in the spirit of experimentation and learning, I set the film speed on my Pentax to 100 and on my 35RC to the film’s box speed, 125. This would hopefully give me a bit of latitude during developing and give me a definitive answer to the question of whether the film had been stored correctly before it came to me. All I needed was a break in the weather.
The weather here in the UK for the first 2 months of 2020 has been pretty horrendous with three major storms battering the country with gale force winds and very heavy rain. Flooding has been a big problem and the reports on the TV of people having to clean up after their houses were flooded, destroying furniture and sometimes treasured belongings, were shown around the world. Fortunately for the FP4 Party, the first week in March saw calmer weather and a couple of dry days enabling me to get out to shoot FP4.
I didn’t want to head too far from home for my first outing just in case the rain came back and took a gentle stroll along a local farm road. It is a place I enjoy as there are plenty of nature trails either side of the road to explore and folks walk their dogs along it every day. I was soon taking photos, exploring texture and contrast with both my camera’s.
For the last few years the film photography community has been having a bit of fun courtesy of Emmet Brown, proprietor of the excellent film photography website https://emulsive.org/ and friends who have been encouraging the film community to get out and about with a series of “Parties” through the year. The idea behind these parties is that a film is chosen for everyone to use, dates are set and we get on with it. It’s all designed to be fun and encourages us to experiment and learn the capabilities of the chosen film stock in the camera’s we own. One of those parties is the FP4 Party to get folks using Ilford FP4 Plus 125 black and white film. I was recently given some Ilford FP4 that expired in 2003 and it was the perfect opportunity to use some and learn about developing my own black and white film at home.
Week one of the FP4 Party is photography week and I loaded my trusty Pentax SP500 SLR and my Olympus 35RC rangefinder with a roll of Ilford FP4 in each. I got some welcome advice from the good folks on the Negative Positives Film Photography Podcast group on facebook about using expired film and, in the spirit of experimentation and learning, I set the film speed on my Pentax to 100 and on my 35RC to the film’s box speed, 125. This would hopefully give me a bit of latitude during developing and give me a definitive answer to the question of whether the film had been stored correctly before it came to me. All I needed was a break in the weather.
The weather here in the UK for the first 2 months of 2020 has been pretty horrendous with three major storms battering the country with gale force winds and very heavy rain. Flooding has been a big problem and the reports on the TV of people having to clean up after their houses were flooded, destroying furniture and sometimes treasured belongings, were shown around the world. Fortunately for the FP4 Party, the first week in March saw calmer weather and a couple of dry days enabling me to get out to shoot FP4.
I didn’t want to head too far from home for my first outing just in case the rain came back and took a gentle stroll along a local farm road. It is a place I enjoy as there are plenty of nature trails either side of the road to explore and folks walk their dogs along it every day. I was soon taking photos, exploring texture and contrast with both my camera’s.
My Olympus 35RC has a fixed 42mm f2.8 lens
and a bright rangefinder that can be tricky to use in bright
sunshine. It also has a shutter priority setting that chooses the
right aperture for the speed you choose on the camera. I chose a
shutter speed of 1/60th that hopefully would eliminate camera shake.
I fitted my Pentax with a Carl Zeiss Jena
135mm f3.5 lens that I haven’t used for a while. It has a sweet
spot at around f5.6-f8 that would give me a short enough shutter
speed to stop camera shake and not have to shoot with the lens wide
open at f3.5. I wasn’t hunting bokeh on this day but it’s nice
when it finds you.
I hadn’t walked far before I had used up both films, the afternoon sunshine gave me plenty of contrast to explore and the log rails at the side of the road gave me lots of textures too. There was also a few signs along the road and I thought what the heck and photographed them too. A productive hour went by quickly and I was soon back home and unloading my camera’s.
I hadn’t walked far before I had used up both films, the afternoon sunshine gave me plenty of contrast to explore and the log rails at the side of the road gave me lots of textures too. There was also a few signs along the road and I thought what the heck and photographed them too. A productive hour went by quickly and I was soon back home and unloading my camera’s.
A couple of days later the weather was nice
again and I decided to use a different camera for my next 2 rolls to
get a better idea of the differences between the two speeds. Wigan
Park has long been my favourite location in town for testing gear out
and, with the weather on my side again, I headed there with my
Olympus OM-2.
Looming large near Wigan Park is the derelict Pagefield Mill. Once a hive of activity weaving cloth for export around the world, it was repurposed as the Construction and Engineering campus of Wigan and Leigh College for many years until a new building was opened nearby. Maintenance costs and the need to remove asbestos from the building was more expensive than a new building and soon after moving out, Pagefield Mill was sold off to Property Developers who planned to convert it into apartments. That was 20 years ago and the once busy site has been gradually decaying and hit by vandalism ever since.
I attended Wigan and Leigh College when it was housed in the Mill and have fond memories from that time. Seeing the place derelict and unloved saddens me and I wanted to capture a few images of it before it’s inevitable demolition at some point in the future. It is a protected building, but the current owners are content to let it rot so they can pull it down and sell the land for a tidy profit.
Looming large near Wigan Park is the derelict Pagefield Mill. Once a hive of activity weaving cloth for export around the world, it was repurposed as the Construction and Engineering campus of Wigan and Leigh College for many years until a new building was opened nearby. Maintenance costs and the need to remove asbestos from the building was more expensive than a new building and soon after moving out, Pagefield Mill was sold off to Property Developers who planned to convert it into apartments. That was 20 years ago and the once busy site has been gradually decaying and hit by vandalism ever since.
I attended Wigan and Leigh College when it was housed in the Mill and have fond memories from that time. Seeing the place derelict and unloved saddens me and I wanted to capture a few images of it before it’s inevitable demolition at some point in the future. It is a protected building, but the current owners are content to let it rot so they can pull it down and sell the land for a tidy profit.
I shot the second roll around the park, the
statue of Baron Sir Francis Sharp Powell and the Boer War memorial
have seen me many times since 2017 when I took my first step back
into film photography. I have probably covered all the best angles in
that time, but I never tire of them and continue to explore them and
try to learn something new each time. A fine afternoon soon went by
and I headed home to have a much needed cup of tea and make sure I
had all I needed for the next phase of the FP4 Party, week 2 –
develop my film!
Next week I talk about learning the black and white film developing process, until then here are a few images from my FP4 Party films, I hope you enjoy them.
Next week I talk about learning the black and white film developing process, until then here are a few images from my FP4 Party films, I hope you enjoy them.
Enjoying the blog Jim. Keep up the wonderful writing!
ReplyDeleteThank you George, that's very kind of you.
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