Spring turned out rather nice in 2023 and gave me plenty of opportunities to go for a wander. To be honest a glorious spring afternoon was all the excuse I needed to go for a walk around the local farm with my grandsons, Ethan and Joseph. We took our cameras with us to see if there was anything we could find whilst out and about.
Ethan fitted his Minolta Dynax 500si super with an AF 35-70mm f/4 and loaded a roll of Ilford HP5. His task for the day was nothing fancy, just try to get some nice well exposed photos and improve hs composition skills. Having spent our last couple of walks going in a clockwise direction, we decided to go anticlockwise this time just for a change and headed off for our walk.
Ethan chose to take a couple of photos of Joseph as he walked ahead of us towards the farm. His first shot was a little off, but his second captured Joseph nicely as he wandered along the dirt track which opens out to reveal a great view of the fields stretching into the distance. Ethan thought it would be different to compose a landscape in portrait orientation because, well, why the heck not! Remember folks, photography rules must be broken just for the heck of it and to be fair he got a nice well balanced photo.
We then went Bug Hunting. Ethan wanted to try to capture insects foraging for food amongst the wild flowers at the side of the dirt track and got to work chasing Bees and Butterflies. He managed to capture some decent photos of the flowers, but the lens he had wasn't long enough to capture insects in great detail.
He figured he would see how the photos turned out before deciding his next move at insect photography. I reckon he's getting the hang of this photography malarkey as he was willing to try something and see what happened. That's the joy of photography, trying something and see how it goes, but more on that later.
Our walk took us across the field where the horses have enjoyed the spring sunshine, but sadly they were out and about with their humans on this day. Ethan grabbed a couple more portrait orientated landscapes which again were beautifully exposed and composed shots for a young chap shooting his fourth roll of film.
He had a break from photography to have a run with Joseph whilst we crossed the corn field. I didn't mind one little bit either as he had put a lot of thought into his photos and had been showing Joseph how to use the camera so Joseph could join in. Letting them run is good for them and it wasn't long before we came to the woodland part of our route.
Ethan wanted to try using his camera in low light and maybe use his camera's built in flash. He sent Joseph and I on ahead and the bright flash was all we needed to know he had grabbed a photo of us both. Joseph had turned a little to look back at Ethan and Ethan nailed it. He took a couple more photos of Joseph using my little Fuji Finepix A700 and he was happy to call it a day.
He left a couple of frames on the roll and the camera sat on the shelf waiting for Ethan to finish it off, but school and a family holiday meant we just didn't get the chance. It was a few weeks later when I took the opportunity to photograph them both in my home as they played with Joseph's electronic drums we bought for his birthday and I could finally develop the film for him.
Being a creature of habit I developed Ethan's roll of Ilfrod HP5 400 with Kodak HC-110 dilution B for 6 minutes at 20 celcius and soon had it hanging to dry in my bathroom. I scanned the film with my trusty Ion Slides2PC 35mm scanner and processed the images with Affinity Photo 2.
After processing the film I went through it with Ethan to see what he had managed to produce and he's happy with his effort, but wants to know how to get closer to the insects without scaring them off. I introduced him to the Beer Can lens and next time we go out Ethan is going to learn the art of standing back and letting the bugs do their own thing rather than chasing them about. He's a quick learner and I'm looking forward to seeing what he can do next time we head out over the school summer holidays.
Here's a few of Ethan's best shots and I think you will agree he has made a big improvement. Our first ten rolls of film are the steepest part of our learning curve and Ethan is making great progress. I am glad he decided to give film photography a try and stick with it too as it is opening his mind to the world around us. As always I have placed them and a few more in an album on Flickr you can visit using the link below. Ethan hopes you enjoy them.
Ethan - Minolta Dynax 500si - Ilford HP5
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