On old favorites, new scanners, and darkroom time: An April film photography update

Allison Inn, Newberg Oregon, 14 April 2022. Minolta SR-T 101/MC Rokkor PG 50mm f/1.4 lens/Fujicolor 200 It seems like forever ago, and having a pandemic in between makes it feel even longer, but it was just a little over three years ago that I got my hands on my Minolta Hi-Matic 7s, my first film...

Midnite Bicycle League 2023, Ride 2: Wednesday 25 January

Grant Park, 25 Jan 2023. Olympus XA/Kodak Portra 400 Another week, another ride to fulfill my Midnite Bicycle League Challenge! This time my destination was The Portland Darkroom in the North Coast Seed Building in North Portland. The Portland Darkroom is located in this building, and I was attending Open Darkroom. The weather was decent:...

On prints and darkrooms: An end of January film photography debate

Shogren Wall, 16 Jan 2023 Olympus XA/Fuji C200 Up until about the mid-nineties, unless you were getting slide film processed, the default method of receiving and viewing what you shot on film was prints. They were tangible items, a physical record of an analog format. I remember when I managed the Electronics/Cameras Department at the...

A darkroom update

Last week was the end of my Intro to Darkroom course. It was nominally a ten week course, but I missed four classes due to sickness and other things, and one was outright cancelled. So I went only six times. I had fun and did learn to print my photos. It was indeed a magickal...

To the next level: The darkroom

I started developing my own film back in March. Over the past half-year I've quickly gotten the hang of home processing. Sure, my dinky Kodak Scanza scanner produces ok-at-best scans, but I do have plans of a better scanner when I have enough scratch. And I figured if I was going to home develop, at...

Visiting The Portland Darkroom, 25 May 2022

Ships at night. Lower Albina at the Willamette River, 25 May 2022. Olympus 35RD/Ilford HP5+/Ilfosol 3 1:9/5:30 in Rondinax 35U I've mentioned before how lucky it is that I decided to get back into film photography while living here in Portland. In other cities you may be lucky to get some Superia 400 from Rite...