I have been a little stuck for time to go out and enjoy my film photography lately. If it wasn't the weather keeping me indoors, it was a really horrible winter cough that had my wife and I laid up for a week. With our microscopic nemesis still mutating and causing havoc we thought it prudent to stay at home until we got rid of it. This was a pain, but necessary as we wanted to visit family to deliver Christmas gifts before we got locked down again. It also gave me a chance to revisit a film I shot back in 2019 and see how my DSLR Scanning skills have grown.
The 2019 August Bank Holiday weekend here in darkest Lancashire was bright and sunny for a change and I was invited to join my friends at a Bike Rally and be a photojournalist for the weekend. The event was a small affair with my friends at Avernus Motorcycle Club where much ale was drank and fun was had. My DSLR took care of the photojournalism shots, but I also took my Pentax SP500 with Industar 50-2 lens and a roll of Kodak Tri-X. Black and Chrome was shouting for a yellow filter and as my Industar lens came with one I had some fun.
This was my first experience at using Tri-X. I'm an Ilford guy at heart and as Mobberly is an hours drive away from my home I support my local film manufacturer. That doesn't mean I can't experiment and I bought a couple of rolls of Tri-X just to see what the fuss was about. The hottest day of the year without a cloud in the sky was challenging to say the least, but I hoped for lots of sparkles and crisp reflections as I made my way through the line of bikes in the parking area.
I developed the film a few days later, scanned it with my Ion Slides2PC scanner and I was a little underhwelmed. Maybe I expected too much from this film that every film photographer I spoke to raved about. I certainly should have been a little more open minded and I let the film sit in my folder for 2 years. Then I began DSLR Scanning and decided to revist my first roll of Tri-X with new eyes.
Two years is a long time in photography, my skills have improved a heck of a lot and my appreciation for the various films I have shot has changed too. Thus it was with Tri-X, helped by using a far superior method of scanning than a phone camera in a box. I was able to get better images and had more control of the contrast by processing my Raw files in Affinity Photo. I like these photos a lot better now and here are a few for you to enjoy. I have placed them and a few more shots of bikes I photographed over that weekend at other events in my DSLR Scanning album on Flickr that you can visit via the link below.
I'm taking a break for the festive season so I will take this opportunity to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and hope 2022 brings you health and happiness.
DSLR Scanning
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