My Old Friend Ilford XP2 and a Challenge

 There's a chap on Twitter whom I follow named Jason Avery. Jason hosts regular challenges for anyone who wants to have a little fun with their camera. From the 7th - 13th of March he challenged us to shoot Ilford XP2 and find symmetry whilst out and about. The following week, 14th - 20th of March is for developing your film and week three, 21st - 27th of March is for show and tell. I enjoy a good photo challenge and long time readers will know I began my B&W film odyssey with XP2. It's a great film for anyone to start shooting B&W with. It has a lot of exposure latitude to forgive our mistakes and can be developed at your high street Photo Store in their colour developing machines.

This time was to be different as I had never developed XP2 at home until now. That wasn't the only change from my previous experience of XP2. I bought a few rolls of it in 120 medium format, which I had not used before now from my favourtie film retailer, Analogue Wonderland. I loaded a roll into my Agfa Isolette 1 and headed into Wigan to hunt down some symmetry around the Market and Galleries.

I enjoy using my Agfa Isolette 1, it's a basic camera that gets me thinking about the shutter triangle. The film gave me the iso, my light meter app on my phone gave me a shutter speed of around 1/200th at f/11 so I set my camera to 1/250th at f/8 and basically left it as a point and shoot. For long shots I set the lens to be focused at 30 feet and closer compositions were shot with the lens set at 10 feet. I'm getting used to this zone focus malarkey.

I have mentioned several times on my blog that The Galleries and Wigan Market are living on borrowed time and lately it has began to really sink in that it's going to be demolished. Shops that were once busy are dark and empty. It's sad to see the decline that has happened to a shopping area that our council said would last a century.

I chose my shots around the Galleries to pick out details or elements of the design of the buildings that show symmetry and also to document the things I like about The Galleries before it only exists in my photos. I also shot a couple of frames in Makinson Arcade, which thankfully is staying put, and the Market Gate entrance which is also staying and re-opening as the new location for Wigan Market in the not too distant future.

I developed the film later that evening with my Cinestill CS41 kit, I have developed colour film at home, but never XP2 until that day. I was quite pleased with how it turned out as it hung to dry in my bathroom. Sadly I have discovered my Agfa Isolette 1 needs some work doing to it, either the bellows maybe a replacement set fitted or the shutter needs a service. Probably both, it is a seventy year old camera so it doesn't really surprise me.

I scanned my film the next day using a quick method with my phone camera and the film held flat with my Pixl-Later. Never underestimate the power of the humble smart phone camera. I have a Nokia 5.3 and the camera is a decent one. The images were processed with Affinity Photo. Here's a few of my images from a pretty successful afternoon in Wigan. I have also placed them and the remaining photos in an album on Flickr you can access using the link below. I hope you enjoy them.

Ilford XP2 - Agfa Isolette 1