James Ballantyne

Its Liminal Everyday

Half In Wood, Half In Iron

Garmisch

Paris

The Mistakes I Made - Developing Film

To begin, the purpose of this blog is not to shame or judge anyone starting out in the realm of analogue film photography, this blog is aimed at reflecting upon my own early photography journey. Bringing to light habits I adopted and then later changed or stopped doing through learning and practice. It is important to highlight the mistakes I made throughout this journey which were key learning opportunities.

Push Processing

If you have a low ISO film and you shoot it at a higher ISO, you will have to push that film in the development process. This is tricky, strict note taking and maths have to be taken in order to achieve a desirable outcome. I often find it to be rather confusing working out the maths. It is worth noting I am self taught in pushing film. In the Paris project I shot the Kentmere 400 film at 3200 iso, crazy I know. To add further difficulty I did a night shoot with no tripod or no calculations for reciprocity. I calculated the development times using a website for guidance. I had 2 different times depending on the method. It was either 74 minutes or 28 minutes, for the purpose of ease I rounded up and down. I asked my technician for his advice and he said if you have calculated it, then it should be right. I pushed on. when i have had this circumstance in the past I would take the difference of the two, half it and add that to the lower value. This time I did not. After developing for 28 minutes, my negatives developed, however they were incredibly thin. If the negs were any thinner it would have been a sheet of assotate.

There are a few things to be taken away from this. Consider what I am shooting and plan ahead with intention. Meaning have the correct speed film, calculate things and have the full equipment. Furthemore it offered the opportunity to fully understand what is meant when I heard people say thin negatives and other things within that regard.

Expired Chemicals

Expired film chemicals are a painful unknown. I had shot 3 rolls in London, it was my first time down there. I visited my lecturers gallery as well as London's photofair. Filled with excitement I shot away in the streets of London and the gardens in the city. The excitement came home with me. Eager to develop, I opened my cupboard, pulled out the chemicals and loaded everything up. Slosh. The development process had begun. After approximately 15+ minutes had passed. I added my other chemicals in a maniacal frenzy. I rinse the film in a bath of the finest liquids. I break the seal. I pull it out,

look…

blank, nothing, gone. It was painful, very painful.

I knew in my mind I had captured some interesting things. In retrospect it had been over 6 months since I last opened my liquid developer. In the future I think it would be advantageous to look into powdered developers to avoid this great error as well as keep track of my chemicals properly.

Mishandling The Film

Mishandling the film in different stages of the process. I found this happens most with 35mm, it seems to be most fiddly. On the white reel there are silver balls, to help keep the film in line and more along in an orderly fashion. When you develop some times gunk can cause it to stick and not move freely. As a result there will be great resistance when loading film, and if you do manage to load it, you might find that the film might go on wavy or half on. Neither of these are good. It can cause creases in the film alongside just deforming the film.

After developing you have to be careful too. I shot 2 rolls on a shoot, the weather was nice. I was eager to develop. Developed it in my bathroom, the first time I had done so. Made sure no one needed to pee. Once I had followed all the steps, I opened the tank to see the results. When i was taking it out i accidentally laid my thumb over the emulsion side before it had dried. The film now had my thumb print etched into it. Patience is a virtue. Similar scenarios can happen but instead of a thumb print it can be scratches or dust / other matter. Minimising the dust is key although very hard to do. Such matter can even be found inside the tank before you develop which is why it's imperative you properly wash your time and reels.

The more I get onto the film journey the more I realise a strict rigor and practice is key in avoiding mistakes, however mistakes happen and are opportunities to learn.