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Darkroom sessions Prep

Writer's picture: Angus, The PhotographerAngus, The Photographer

Updated: Aug 19, 2020

Having been granted some access to the darkroom and film processing suites the university, I made plans to develop some existing film I had shot and then move on to creating some prints once they were developed, just in case any shots on those rolls turned out to be good shots that might lend well to printing.


After developing these rolls of film I examined the results and they were interesting and useful for both good reasons and bad. One of the rolls of HP5+ had been shot using a Praktica MTL5 SLR that I had not yet tested out bar initial functionality testing. I found that any shots above 1/60th of a second only registered half the frame on the film. After some testing and dry firing with the back of the camera open I found that past 1/60th, the metal shutter blades would only half move out of the way, leaving around a 1/4 to 1/2 the frame blacked out. This was frustrating as this roll had been one of my 'Liminal Infrastrcutre' themed shooting sessions and as far as I could see from what remained of the frame, the rest of the camera did its job pretty well, with sharp focus and crisp images, just a shame only 30% of the Image is on the film!




Of the other rolls of film, there were some very nice and very sharp images I had shot on an Olympus MJU automatic, and despite being a point and shoot camera, the images from this camera were pin-sharp, well-exposed with reasonable contrast and highlighting. Many of the shots on this roll were prime candidates for going to print, eventually, I decided on the first image I wanted to print from the roll, a shot of a harbour wall/pier with a string of lamposts leading out into a still, misted horizon, bracketed by a section of outdated architecture on one side and a car parking area on the other. I liked the composition of the image, and this is what drew me to the image as the vertical lines are augmented by the lampost, the building and wall to the sides and the stretching depth that the images has to it. I was also drawn to the water on the ground and the slight to partial mirroring that this allowed, further accentuating the lines of the image.


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