January 2025 – Severn Stoke, Worcs.

This was a shoot using my 35mm Minolta, which is very old and I tend to use it when on walks as its light and not too cumbersome. The landscape here is full of texture in the winter, and lends itself well to black and white film. I find some of the photos here are overexposed in some areas and underexposed in the shadows, especially on the seedheads of the sunflowers. In hindsight may have benefited from using a light meter as back up so that I could more accurately meter the scene.

I like this image with the Malvern Hills in the background. There is a clear line of hedge demarcating the edge of the fields, with the flood water indiscriminately crossing into the next field. The sunflower seed heads in the foreground add structure to the image. This was processed by The Darkroom as at this stage I’d not revisited my darkroom skills, this shoot was about getting started again with analogue.

March 2025

6 x 6 black and white, at the lake.

The negative scans below were from a shoot I did with my old Bronica 6×6. I developed the film in the darkroom and printed a few images from the negatives. As you can see on some of the images below, I hadn’t quite pushed the film holder down into the development tank enough so there is a dark edge to some of the photos. I also had some difficulty with focus because the magnifier had broken (now fixed) hence I had to rely on my eyesight which isn’t great! This was an old film, recently expired and so I deliberately used it for this test. It was useful to remind myself of the darkroom processes and set myself up for more important shoots.

May 2025

6 x 7, Lake shoot

Extremely grateful to now have a Mamiya 7 camera to use for medium format. This is the second shoot with it, the first having been a complete fail due to me missing a key setting! I didn’t waste time & resources developing the film for that as I know it hasn’t worked. This shoot was again to practice skills and consider how the camera ‘behaves’ in certain scenarios. I may use in combination with a light meter as it is a difficult balance with highlights and shadows, I also must spend more time on focus and getting used to the quirks of a rangefinder. Also, there are only 9 images because… lens cap!

Again, I processed the negatives in the darkroom myself. More careful this time to ensure the film was loaded properly and then I scanned the negatives in, as before.

I have two more rolls of film but both are colour and so if I am able to get these processed in time at The Darkroom in Cheltenham, they will be included here. If not, I will use them as a kick off point for my FMP as I had taken the photos with that in mind.

With analogue, I am very keen to incorporate this into my FMP. I still think that the black and white quality of a medium or large format print is unrivalled and so fully intend to continue, having refined my process and discipline a little more during the course of this module. It’s not habitual for me yet and so often make mistakes as I go, therefore I am making sure I have film loaded and can grab my camera as and when I head out. I have some concerns about timescale here, moving forwards. As the darkroom facilities won’t be available until September, that will be very late into the next module. I will have to see how successful I can be by processing the negatives at home.