found film (still more woe)

The Wirgin Junior folding camera arrived today. By the by, there's not a heck of a lot out there on this camera, though one site incorrectly refers to it as a 6x9 120 camera. It's not. It takes 6x6 shots.

But back to the woe: Compared with my experience with the Diana 151 that arrived the other day, in this case, I knew that the camera would arrive with an exposed roll of film inside. Still bummed about yesterday's mistakes, I took the time to re-research the best way to develop this film. Otherwise put, although I had developed old, long expired verichrome pan in the past--successfully so, I might add--I didn't want to leave anything to chance. An added complication (and additional motive for conducting re-research) was that I was out of Diafine, my usual go-to developer for old b/w films. Following the advice found here (. . .though I have to admit I was conflicted, thinking that maybe I should follow instead the advice found here?) I developed the film in a 1:14 solution of HC-110 for 8 minutes, agitating for the first 30 seconds and then twice every 30 seconds for the remainder of the development. After the fix and before the rinse I took a peek at the end of the film and was delighted to see that I hadn't botched the development. The truth is, the past couple months have been really sad (or as I'd like to think of them, unlucky) for me where found film has been considered. And by "found film" I mean specifically film shot by another, later found and developed by me. . .this as opposed to finding other people's developed negatives. I call that "just plain lucky." I trashed two rolls as a result of using what turned out to be way-exhausted Diafine. Argh. And then there was the C-41/C-22 debacle yesterday. So with this film, I really needed a win. Or, if not a win, I just needed not to %$&!# this one up too. So, the good news is that I ended up with this image:










. . .a portion of which I'm really quite fond.








and this too. definitely a more abstract-y version of the snow and tree line above. and then there was one other image on the roll--a really uninteresting image of a squirrel sitting in snow. Problem was, the squirrel was so small and the snowy landscape so ginormous you had to magnify the image a lot to figure out the speck on the snow is, in fact, a squirrel.

But that was it. Nothing else on the film. Boo. Not the best couple of weeks (or has it been months?) for me where making pictures has been concerned.

on process: the worst-case scenario

So the second Diana 151 arrives the other day (I highly recommend bidding on items during holidays) and the surprise bonus is that there is a roll of film inside. The roll is on exposure #2 and I'm a little bummed because it would have been great to get the mint diana, the box (in what I'd call good condition as there is a small tear starting in one corner of the box) AND a fully exposed roll of film for 19.95.

Here's where I messed things up and why I'm ultra-bummed today: While I've researched how to go about developing old b/w films, it never occurred to me to do the same with color films. Maybe part of this is that my experience using the Tetenal C-41 kit has me on auto-pilot in that I develop every color film for the same amount of time, no matter what. Another (more embarrassing) part of the problem is my not even stopping to think that anything preceded C-41 development. Blast! Double-duh! The roll of film inside was Kodacolor-X, a film that used C-22 processing. I read on one forum that a b/w developer like Diafine or Rodinal can work, but obviously, it's too late to try that with this roll. It was, needless to say, fried after its bout in C41 chemicals. Seriously, yellow stuff was dripping off the roll. So sad. Such a learning opportunity missed. Of course, this is not to diminish the much harder lesson learned today: Research everything first--don't assume! That said, I would have rather learned more about what this particular film could do. The one thing I give thanks for is that they were all (save for the first frame) all images I took. And having no idea if the camera back had been off or if the film had been exposed to light, I didn't shoot anything that couldn't be shot again. Still, the sky today was amazing. Blah. I guess I always know when it's time to get back to the job I'm paid to do and leave the hobby aside for a bit. . .between this gaff and the polaroid woes, I feel like someone or something is telling me to get back to work.

pola woes

Before getting to the pola woes, I'd like to say something about pola desire. More specifically, the desire to take polaroids. For me, the desire to work with polaroid cameras--though I don't have the urge that often--is much like the desire to develop film. When I'm wanting to develop film, I don't care if the pictures are good, I don't care if there is anything I necessarily want to photograph and maybe I'm not even in the mood to take pictures, but I want (it actually feels more like a need) to go through the development process. I want to measure, agitate--I want to smell the fixer, wait through the long rinse process and then clip and hang the negatives to dry.

So I was having the pola urge earlier this week and since I really wanted to document the back stair case before I move, well, it seemed like the perfect time (and given the dramatic lighting at the bottom of the stairs, the perfect camera with which) to do so.









So I take a few shots with the One Step Close-Up using expired 600 integral film (see first image above) and then I decide to take out the Polaroid 220 and take a few more images using Fuji b/w 3000 pull-apart film (see triptych directly above). No question: I'm definitely having a goop ole' time so much so that I decide to try and sustain the pola fun through today. No bueno. Shoulda' quit while I was feeling ahead.

And now for the pola woes part. As it happens, both cameras started misfiring with two exposures left in each camera. The 220 seemed to jam after (or while) taking this picture of the chair with the diana cameras strung over it. More specifically, when I pulled this image out of the camera, it came out followed by 1/2 of the final exposure left in the camera. This--the overlap--I'm guessing is responsible for the white line running through the image.

But there there was this: The two final exposures in the One Step came out like this. Blech. I believe I read something sometime ago about others having problems like this with both types of film--if I recall correctly, the problems occurred with the last shots in the film packs. Problem is, I don't recall exactly where I found those discussions. Mmmm. Guess tomorrow will involve some re-research.