Along the canal

These were taken last September - and honestly, I can not wait for warmer weather and longer walks. I’ve always been quite sensitive to the cold but this winter that combined with CFS/ME led to the worst cold intolerance I’ve ever experienced. Any temperature drop and I was sluggish, unable to regulate my temperature properly and at the very worst, barely functioning at all.

Bring on the warm weather and a functioning body again!

Camera: Canon EOS 750
Film: Fuji Colour 200
Location: Leeds/Liverpool Canal, Leeds

St Georges Field, Leeds

Can you believe that before I was made aware of St Georges Field - or Woodhouse Cemetary - in Leeds that I had no idea it was there. The ‘field’ is an old cemetary dating from the 1800’s that is thought to have over 10,000 bodies buried there - though you wouldn’t think to look at it as all the monuments and graves are quietly sat in the corners.

Now part of the University of Leeds Campus, the field is a quiet sanctuary on the edge of the busy centre and if I’m walking that side of the city, I now take a detour to walk through. I’m a little sad that I no longer have to go to Uni every Thursday actually, because it was a nice little spot to stretch my legs before heading to the library.

Camera: Canon EOS 750
Film: Kodak Tri-X 400
Location: St George’s Field, Leeds

Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles

These photos are from the first rolls of films that I developed myself last year - and as such, they are full of all the beginner mistakes that you make when starting something new. These particular photos have ‘bubbles’ on them, left behind by the chemicals as the film dried after developing. I didn’t realise at the time that there was an optional stage of ‘wetting agent’ that would have stopped this which is frustrating, but here we are.

Funnily enough, I’ve now run out of all the other chemicals I had, and now I have a big bottle of wetting agent just sat in a cupboard haha. We live, we experiment and we learn right!

I’m still trying to decide if I’m going to develop my own films again - on one hand, it was a really tactile, methodical process that I enjoyed doing - and the feeling of seeing the photos that you took straight from the tank was pretty awesome (I must also add that the feeling of a blank roll from the tank is also incredibly gut wrenching - high highs and low lows this film business) . On the other hand, I now have my ME/CFS diagnosis and on top of working full time and all my other hobbies (crochet, knitting, reading and cuddling my cats) developing my own film just seems like something thats easier and less effort to outsource now. (Chronic illness, the gift that keeps giving). I guess I wouldn’t say I would never do it again, just not in a hurry.

If you want an accurate reflection of how this film looks when done right, this is not the post (haha) however I will refer you to this review on Emulsive.

Camera: Canon EOS 750
Film: Kodak TMax P3200
Location: Harewood House, Leeds

2020 366 PROJECT 26-28

During my little experiment in developing my own film last year - I lost two films to expired chemicals. I should have stopped after the first film didn’t work but I assumed that I had done something wrong, rather than it being something wrong with the equipment. Unfortunately on one of those two films was numbers 29-41 of this series.

2020 - the year where if something could go wrong - it likely did haha. I guess its a risk you take with using film , especially if you then develop it yourself - and honestly, after the project came to a stop during the first lockdown we experienced here in the UK, I wasn’t too upset at having lost a few photos . Definitely not as upset as I would have felt if it had happened in 2016!

So here are 26-28 and the next post I share for this project will be starting at day 42.

26/366/2020 - A random door knocker in Leeds that I’m pretty sure I’ll never take for granted again haha

27/366/2020 - I took a version of this photo in 2016 which didn’t turn out very well due to a faulty camera, so I thought I’d give it another shot with my trusty Canon EOS 750.

28/366/2020 - In my enthusiasm at the beginning of last year, I decided to start looking for little details near my work office that I might have comepletely overlooked - this was a rather juicy one I thought.

Film: Kodak T-Max 400- sent to me by Kodak Alaris and developed and scanned by myself (hence the water stains - such an amateur ha)
Camera: Canon EOS 750