Poppies

I haven't shot any roll of film in a while. Don’t know why, to be completely honest, life was in the way and just a lack of will, I reckon, which some might translate as laziness.

Today, however, I was in the mood, so I put a roll of Kentmere Pan 100 through my Bronica S2A and nicely asked these beautiful poppy pods to serve me as models. They agreed.

The shooting session took me a few good hours, as the confined space I’m working in at the moment doesn’t give me enough flexibility, and I need to adapt and improvise.

What is interesting, though, is not that I shot a roll of 120 film nor the camera I used, but the developing and the digitalising, somehow.

Shot with Bronica S2A on Kentmere Pan 100. Stand developing 60 min in Rodinal 1:100. Converted to positive in PS without b&a conversion.

I developed for 1 hour, in a 1:100 Rodinal, with only 1 min agitation at the beginning, then 30s at the middle of the time, people call this 'stand' or 'semi-stand', rather, developing process. This is intended to increase film acuteness and enhance shadows. Well, as I said before, more laziness on my side, and it was too hot today to ‘agitate’ myself too much. Heat is not exactly my cup of tea…

Now, the negatives turned out quite ok. I love looking at negatives; it sometimes makes me think that they’re much nicer than the positive image, actually.

Shot with Bronica S2A on Kentmere Pan 100. Stand developing 60 min in Rodinal 1:100. Converted to positive in PS without b&a conversion.

Scanning part. Ahhh, I forgot to mention, my scanner is at the moment in bro’s loft collecting some dust (for future experimentation ;) ). So improvisation, again - I have no specialised accessories to achieve that. I used the Nikon Z5 with a Sigma 28mm (with macro function) to get some digitised images from the negatives lying on a tablet screen turned to the whitest possible light for back illumination. Luckily, the film was flat enough, but as you might imagine, not perfectly flat, right?! Pain, no more words…

So I ‘scanned’ them with my camera and reversed them in PS. And I realised I did not convert them to b&a…

That was, by chance, the best decision!!! I mean, look at these images, aren’t they beautiful?!

Shot with Bronica S2A on Kentmere Pan 100. Stand developing 60 min in Rodinal 1:100. Converted to positive in PS without b&a conversion.

Well, for me they are!