approved by the ministry of silly hats

Film always inspires me to experiment. Different film emulsions, different developers, pushing, pulling, different agitation schemes and so on. Of course in the process things tend to go wrong as well. It’s bound to happen when you experiment. However, sometimes when things go wrong they end up producing some unexpectedly good results as well. This roll was supposed to go into the same tank as my accidental roll of EI 800 in daylight, so I left the XA at ISO 800 on purpose this time. However, this one was shot when it was actually getting darker already and here the development turned out alright with just a couple of shots too bright. I guess I wasn’t shooting at the wrong aperture with this one. I actually quite like the contrast that is already in the straight scans without post-processing. These really needed very little adjustment. Maybe I’m onto something. In any case, did I mention that I love Tri-X? We had a difficult start, but the more I experiment with it, the more I like it.

All pictures taken with: Olympus XA, F.Zuiko 35mm f/2.8.
Tri-X EI 800 stand-developed in Rodinal 1:100, 90min.

Football makes people do silly things.

I love the contrast.

I hate when people crack their neck … and I especially dislike it when strangers do it in public. Not sure what went wrong with this neg by the way, of course it’s a crop of pushed film, so the grain is expected to be massive, but those underdeveloped spots on the right are really odd. Maybe air bubbles?