After my darkroom workshop with Andrew Bartram back in April I was keen to put my new founding film developing skills into practice. About ten days later I took myself off to Audley with my pinhole camera to take some photos, with the intention of developing them when I got home.
I found plenty of photographic inspiration and had no difficulty in completing the 12 shots on my roll of film. Once I was home I light proofed our our downstairs toilet with the blackout cloth I’d bought for the job. As a room with no windows it’s only a case of sealing the tiny slivers if light which sneak in around the door - the perfect darkroom! Loading the film took a couple of attempts but once it was done I spent half hour at the kitchen sink developing, fixing and rinsing my negatives.
When the film emerged from my developing tank I was very relieved to find I had photos, but disappointed to discover I’d made a bit of a horlicks of loading the film on the spiral. It had stuck together in a couple of places, so a handful of the shots were lost. Just as well I’d gone somewhere I can easily return to in order to recreate the same photos another time!
Overall I’m pleased with the results though and since then I’ve been careful to make sure I don’t make the same mistake. Even better, each roll of film costs me about a fifth of what I was paying to have them developed commercially so that leaves me more cash to buy film!
Photos taken on 14 April 2022