Frugal Film Project 2024 - October - 35mm

 October was a bust for me. I was just not feeling inspired after weeks of grey days with no sunshine to speak of and I missed my deadline of October 31st to get my Kentmere 400 35mm film completed. No excuses, I'm late and it's my fault. I'm thankful we have a 14 day grace period each month, but I hate using it, particularly when it's not the first time I have missed a deadline this year. It was the second week in November when we finally got some autumn sunshine and I managed to get out and get the job done.

Remembrance day, 11th November, fell on a Monday this year and I headed into town on a reasonably sunny afternoon to finally shoot my Frugal film for October. I took a few photos around the Cenotaph outside Wigan Parish Church and spent some time thinking of the men and women who marched off to war and never came home. We Will Remember Them.

I set off towards Wigan Pier in the hope of finding some nice compositions on this increasingly fine day. I took a few shots of the buildings on Wallgate and continued towards Trencherfield Mill. I captured a few more compositions around the Mill, mostly stuff I had already explored, but not with my OM101. I wanted to compare it with photos I have taken there with my OM10 and OM-2 and it was nice and easy to do that than get flustered looking for new compositions.

The canal dock at the Mill wasn't quite mirror like, but still gave me a great reflection shot that I duly nailed and headed along the canal to the Pier. The canal was much more disturbed by the light wind which means my ongoing lack of a decent reflection shot there continues. It's also where I finished my roll of film, I rewound it and I carried on my merry way to get some shopping before heading home.

I developed my film the next day with Kodak HC110 1+47 dilution E for 9 minutes at 20 celcius and soon had it hanging to dry in my bathroom overnight. I digitised it the next day using my Nikon D700, Tamron Adaptall 2 90mm f/2.5, Valoi 35mm film holder, Pixl-Latr and A5 sized LED light pad. I processed the raw files with Affinity Photo 2.

My choice of developing Kentmere 400 in HC110 1+47 dilution E once again paid dividends. That sweet spot dilution has been consistently giving me great results with Kentmere 400 and it's a shame I am almost out of the original syrup I bought when I started developing my own film in 2020. I'm told the new formula is just as good, but the shelf life is greatly reduced. I will have to find out at some point, but that is something for a future blog.

Here's a few of my favourite photos from my October roll of Kentmere 400 shot with my Olympus OM101 for the Frugal Film Project 2024. As always I have placed them and more in my Frugal Film Project 35mm album on Flickr you can visit using the link below. I hope you enjoy them.

Frugal Film Project 2024 - October - 35mm