The end of Woolworth's in the UK & Ilford XP2

Nikon FE 24mm/Nikkor

Ilford XP2

It is hard to listen to the radio or television for any longer than fifteen minutes before you hear the word credit crunch.

Its all doom and gloom greedy bankers and redundancies.

One of first big visible victims of this credit crunch on the high street was Woolworth's, every town of any size in this country probably had a Woolworth's.

In the last 10 years I have probably bought two things from Woolworth's and its demise will not affect me a great deal.

I have Friends who will really miss Woolworth's and would be in there twice a week.

I continue document the world around me and took this frame in the last 15 minutes of my local Woolworth's.

Some retailers and organisations are very sensitive to photography inside there stores.

Not wishing to be confronted by store security and possibly loosing my Nikon and my new to me 24mm Nikkor I took this grab shot.

The film I used is Ilford XP2

http://www.ilfordphoto.com/products/product.asp?n=11

This is a chromeogenic B&W film, basically its a colour film that has just black dye couplers.

It is processed in the standard C41 colour process which means you can get you film processed and printed quickly at a mini lab.

If you make your prints (Wet prints) in a traditional B&W dark room this film is optimised for this process.

One of the most useful features of this film is the enormous exposure latitude.

You can expose if from ISO50 to ISO3200 on the same roll and you will get a good print.

Ilford recommend you expose the film at ISO400 but if you over expose the film you get extremely fine grain and good shadow detail above iso 400 you will get higher contrast a loss of shadow detail and more grain.

So you are almost guaranteed to get a negative from which you can obtain a good print, just what you need for grab shots under mixed light and a guesstimated exposure.

I personally much prefer conventional B&W film but XP2 is ideal in difficult light when all you need is a print.

Contax IIa

Un-Coated Zeiss Sonnar 50mm/f1.5 + Lens hood

This is outdated AGFA APX400 Shot with a very old Contax II.
The low contrast of the film and the lens combined with the grain of the film add to the gloom..

Oh! How confusing life can be.

Over the weekend in Norwich there were various events connected with The Lord Mayors Celebrations.

One of these events was street entertainers...

The girl in the photograph had walked out from a side street to be confronted with a pixie walking with her dragon complete with a dragon's egg in a hand cart.
This scene totally confused her.

What the ???!!

Help where am I ??

What's going on ??

Oh I see!

She wants me to sit on her dragons egg

I'm off.. everyone is laughing at me.

A pixie walking her dragon in Norwich.

Nothing to out of the ordinary here.

Nikon FE Nikon 105mm/f2.5 Nikkor

AGFA APX100 Developed in Rodinal Special 1-30 8.5 Mins

Where has he gone??

I have not posted to this blog for a while you can find my most recent photographs here on Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10239287@N06/

Found Film Ilford FP4 Chemistry class 1980'S??

I bought an early Voightlander Brillant on Ebay last month. It is a nice early all metal one with a compur shutter and a Skopar lens. The added bonus was that there was a partly exposed roll of film inside!

The film was Ilford FP4 this film was revised to FP4+ in 1990 so the film must have been purchased prior to then.

The film was on frame 4 when I got the camera the wheel on the camera that works the frame counter had left a rusty deposit on the film. so it was exposed some time ago.

I developed the roll of film that day in Kodak X-Tol. I have found that developer works well on old ilford films.

Looking at the photographs it looks like this could be a high school chemistry lesson in progress, bring in an old camera and load some B&W film shoot some film and develop the pictures. I would say that the person that took these pictures turned up with there grandfathers old camera which takes 120 film, and the school did not have a developing tank for the film. so it stayed inside the camera.

The cameras that the other people are using are point and shoot jobs, I would guess that this film was exposed in the 1980's

The voigtlander Brillant that the film was inside is a very nice example I have cleaned its Skopar lens and cleaned the shutter I am in the process of running a film through the camera, The skoppar lenses are very sharp and I have had good results from my other Voightlander brillants that have this lens.

more from the fringe

I have posted a number of my pictures from the Fringe on Flickr the link is here.. http://www.flickr.com/photos/10239287@N06/sets/72157600886304431/

Nikon FM3A Nikon 10.5cm f2.5 Film Agfa APX100 Dev Rodinal 1:50

Edinburgh Fringe 2007

Some shots from this years fringe festival in Edinburgh. These shots were taken on Monday and Wednesday of the first week.
There are more photos on my Flickr page you can find it here http://www.flickr.com/photos/10239287@N06/sets/72157600886304431/

Nikon FM3a Nikon 35-105 zoom. Film frist 2 frames Agfa APX25 other 2 frames Kodax

Tri-X Dev: Agfa Rodinal 1:50 10mins for APX25 Tri-X Dev X-tol Stock 7:15

Edinburgh Fringe 2007 Pentax 6X7

This photograph was taken at this years fringe festival in Edinburgh with a Pentax 67 camera, my back is now hurting now that I had this monster of a camera and a 105 and 150mm lens in my bag for the day. One American photographer commented when I was loading another roll of film into the Pentax " Now that's dedication- do you use that for snaps?!" I shot 3 rolls of transparency film as well I have not got the transparencies back from the lab, should be interesting.

Pentax 6X7 Pentax 105mm f2.4 Film Agfa APX100 Dev Rodinal 13mins at 20 degC

Skegness 29/07/07

A nice sunny day in Skegness last Sunday it was a bit windy but you cant beat a sea breeze.
As always with my Skegness photographs high contrast and lots of grain, I achieve this with a Red or yellow filter and develop my Tri-X in 1:25 Rodinal

Nikon FE 50mm/f1.8 Nikkor & 28mm/f3.5 Nikkor +red25 filter. Film. Kodak Tri-X pan@320asa Dev. Agfa Rodinal 1:25 7mins

Boston Marina 27/03/07

Boston Marina. Looking toward the Town and the Grand Sluce.

Pentax P30t Pentax 28-85 zoom. Film Agfa APX 100 Dev Agfa Rodinal 1:50 13 mins

Found Film. 616 KODAK VERICHROME PAN

I bought a Kodak folder a while ago, It had a part exposed roll of

Verichrome pan inside. The film was in very poor condition as the backing paper was stuck to the film.

I developed the film with the backing paper on and soaked the paper off when I had processed the film.

I got 3 printable frames and here two of them.

This looks like a very proud mother and son with future daughter in law, its a pity the person who took the photographs did not get them developed as they are super pictures, who knows??