I had another two weeks filled with photography experiments. After the stint in the darkroom I decided to reduce the amount of undeveloped rolls in the drawer and finally tackled something I’ve been preparing for quite a while: E6 development! You might remember that many moons ago in the autumn of 2014 I saw an exhibition of Joel Meyerowitz which led me down the rabbit hole of colour photography. I shot many rolls of colour film in 2015 as a result, experimenting with different film stocks and C41 development kits. I even shot our whole trip to Argentina last year on C41 film and you’ve already seen the results on this blog. What you haven’t seen were the rolls of slide film that I also shot over the last year, because I never seemed to have enough rolls to mix up the kit. Shooting and developing slide film was actually my goal when I started down the colour rabbit hole and now I’m finally there. Was it a success? Oh yes!

Looking at the slides on the light table is a fantastic experience and the colours are really something else entirely. In fact, the Velvia 100 slides have such amazing reds that skin tone often looks very much like I imagine a radiation burn on Mars. From now on I will shoot Provia 100F when I want to take regular street shots and keep the Velvia for static subjects. I will also try to keep both on hand and shoot a lot more of it, because the colours are just amazing. Developing it isn’t any harder than C41 with the Jobo and the results are just wonderful. The other lesson was that Rollei CR 200 turns out way too yellow when developed in E6 chemicals. It is aerial film, so has a lot of yellow to counter the blue of the atmosphere. It would probably turn out fine with the right blue filter, but on top of things it curls like mad and was driving me crazy trying to scan it. I think I’ll just pay a bit more to get those lovely Fuji colours and film that is less annoying to scan. That is, as long as the Fuji slide film is still around, since Fuji”film” isn’t really much about film anymore. In any case, if you’ve never shot slide film, then really, do yourself a favour and try it!

Today I won’t be able to show you the slides yet, mainly because I still need to re-scan a couple of rolls and edit all of them properly. So far I haven’t had the time yet, because I was busy editing the pictures from January. Don’t worry though, you’ll get to see the slides soon, since most of them are from last year.

For now I’ll show you some pictures from the end of August. During this time is the week of the summer festival and the city was completely packed. Hot weather, summer holidays for the children, weird processions, concerts and crowds. You can imagine that I was having a good time! Next time I’ll shoot a less annoying film stock though, Fomapan 400 really isn’t my cup of tea.

Pictures taken with Leica M6, Zeiss ZM C-Biogon 35mm f/2.8 and Rolleicord V, Schneider-Kreuznach Xenar 75mm f/3.5.

Starting off with M6 / Fomapan 400 / Caffenol-CL.

Not quite upright.

Summer.

Two?

The dog needed to be photographed.

They were having lots of fun.

Outdoor play done differently.

Another instalment of people pointing at things.

Happy.

Nice shades …

I love this one!

Confident.

And then I did something stupid, I switched cameras at the end of the roll and forgot to rewind the film. Looking at the film all spooled up outside the can is heartbreaking.

Rollei / RPX 400 @800 / Rodinal stand.

It was the time of the city festival and I went to one of the Giant Head processions, which actually involves the giants hitting people in the crowd including children. Strange tradition and quite stressful when you’re trying to handle a fully manual camera at the same time …!

In the crowd I met this little guy.

Lots and lots of children with a good view.

That looks like a complicated operation. On the left you can see one of the giants.

What a look! Surprising that he figured it out right away.

My favourite picture from the roll.

M6 / Foma 400 / CCL.

Drums too … always drums.

After a short break they moved on.

And more pointing.

More children with a good view.

This one cracked me up.

The good thing about events is that one can shoot from eye level without worrying about annoyed reactions. And my Zeiss at f/2.8 is just lovely.

In the crowd.

I love how this little hand is illuminated.

It was absolutely packed full of people.

So weird! I had more giant head pictures, but they got lost on the roll I ruined. At least this one turned out great.

Balloons.

She was obviously trying to get out of the crowd.

I asked for this one and the owner didn’t want to appear in the picture.

Obviously lost.

Eye contact.

Over there!

The light was magical. I wish this wasn’t Foma though! I need to try to print this to see whether the skies still look muddy printed. The scanner is rather unforgiving with grain in comparison to my diffusion enlarger.

I asked this nice woman whether I could take some pictures of her dog and she played with him for the pictures. I shot almost half a roll because he was so adorable. She said that she gets asked for pictures of the little guy regularly.

My favourite of the lot!

Such a cute little guy.

Foma 400 @1600 / Rodinal stand. Don’t try this, it’s a foggy mess where all the shadows drown, barely salvageable and definitely impossible to print in the darkroom.

There was a tango orchestra playing on the band stand. They weren’t bad, but I could have done without the singer’s self-deprecating jokes about Argentinians.

They were having fun at least.

If only it had some shadow detail this one wouldn’t be half bad.

Right after we went to a jazz bar. Definitely too dark for f/2.8 anyway and Foma was definitely the wrong film to push.

Who needs shadows anyway?

Foma 400 / Caffenol-CH.

The light was not cooperating here either.

We went for a coffee before going to the cinema.

On the right you see the lack of anti-halation layer. Too much glow for my liking.

Quick shot before the movie.

I love this one!

Foma 400 / HC-110 dil E.

The kids always climb up there. Sometimes parents complain, but mostly not.

Another cute bandit.

There were some disembodied legs lying around.

Surf board envy.

Lying around.

Foma is still muddy also in HC-110.

Trying to catch the gulls isn’t easy here, mainly because there aren’t that many of them. The gulls here are rather small and timid, unlike the nasty mutant gulls over in Brighton that attack people or even fly into open windows to steal food.

This is so odd …

End of the roll, so I turned it to 4×5 to cut off the light leak of my bulk loader. I fixed it with some more light seal foam by the way.

Lying around. Apparently people don’t like to be upright in the summer.

Hanging around at the boulevard or on the beach is what these kids do all summer.

Argument?

The little guy was well aware of me. This was obviously taken while crossing the street on a slope. Looks crooked in many different ways and I gave up trying to straighten it. Close enough, I guess.

Three little dogs can’t be resisted.

The dogs are often more interesting than the people. Last one for the month of August.