Regular readers of this blog will know that I have been teaching myself the dark art of film development for a couple of years now. For me, it turns photography into a craft rather than a digital miracle.
A few months ago I developed a medium format film and came up with this.
My shot of the old Menai Bridge over to Anglesey has a fault – as if some sort of heavy rain were falling across the image. Every frame in the roll was the same. I sort of assumed it was my developing technique since all kinds of things can go wrong: old developer, wrong dilution, wrong quantities of chemicals and so on and so on. Nonetheless, I contacted the film manufacturers Ilford who to their great credit, having checked the batch number, told me that it was a manufacturing fault and sent me some free film. Nice of them, of course, but it’s a good job I hadn’t been photographing a Royal Wedding for Vogue, eh?
Fast forward to a few weeks ago. I pulled another film out of the developing tank and found this.
Down the righthand side, as you can see, is a honeycomb strip of bubbly summats spoiling this otherwise winsome shot of Mrs B. contemplating the meaning of life on our recent romantic mini-break on the coast of North Wales. All frames were the same, thus spoiling my first theory that someone had lit a heavy bonfire to my right as I shot. Ever hopeful, I contacted Ilford who didn’t put their hand up this time but made the polite suggestion that I might be over agitating. ‘Agitation’ in the darkroom refers to the process of turning the development tank (which is about the size of a pint pot) over regularly so that the developing solution is evenly spread. And it is a matter which causes not a little discussion in our small community: speed, direction, frequency and their consequences (too much contrast, not enough contrast, shadow detail, highlight tone) are all the subject of detailed scrutiny and strong opinion.
Casting my mind back I realised that there had indeed been some foaming of the developer and concluded that was almost certainly the cause: the film sits on its side in the tank and so when the developer foams the top edge of the film doesn’t get the full treatment. Oddly two other films which I developed after this one were unaffected. From somewhere – I can’t recall where now – I had got the idea that a ten-second agitation requires ten turns of the tank. In fact, it seems that is way too much and that four or five is adequate.
It’s frustrating but how else do you learn a craft other than by practice?