overexposed & underprepared

Playing With Chemicals

So, as it turns out, film is expensive, and Black and White Film is not that easily obtained; my local photo shop doesn’t ‘do’ black & white film, and the few other places that are left only process film colour film if they do anything at all. Cue a discussion with my girlfriend’s dad, who’s had experience with film developing, and a recently collected a load of developing equipment.

Armed with a couple of black & white films, I made my first attempt at developing with help and encouragement. As it turns out the first film I developed went horribly wrong, but it was my one and not the girlfriends! (So that was ok!) The second one worked perfectly (I know what I did wrong immediately)

These are some of the results

Pentax P30t w/28mm wide angle Lens

Ilford HP5

The pictures are my girlfriends, and are a bit dirty, due to being left hanging around (literally!) for a couple of weeks, and from what I can tell, not being rinsed thoroughly enough during developing

So now the hunt started for cheap film, my first couple of hours of compulsive searching had found some places, but indecision keeps me from buying anything just yet.

Should I buy my own developing tank and all of the extras to do it myself?

Or should I continue paying for developing at a local place?

The maths are elementary and the answer is developing tank, but I still struggle to make that initial purchase, I have been caught in obsessions before that have spiralled out of control into much bigger purchases than was strictly necessary, so for now just looking at prices on Amazon will have to do!