Cemetery Series: Sixprong

I started off the new year - Jan 2, to be precise - with a trip to a few cemeteries in SE Washington that I hadn't been to before. One of those was Sixprong Cemetery in Klickitat County. Although located in a remote area of the state, it is situated at the end of a dirt lane, just a half mile or so from a modern ranch house. In fact, no sooner had I arrived when a pickup drove up, presumably to see what I was doing. The presence of my TLR probably clued them in to me not making any mischief that day.

And although this was Jan 2, the temps were fairly mild with clouds and intermittent sunshine throughout the day. Perfect for what I wanted to accomplish. I brought along my Mamiya C220 TLR and loaded it with a roll of Ilford fp4+ film. I took advantage of the atmospheric conditions with the clouds and the sun and screwed a red #25 filter onto the 80mm f/2.8 lens.

Grass has grown up within the rectangular bounds of the cemetery, with patches of thorny weeds here and there. The place is by no means abandoned and unkempt, though. In fact, I was surprised that several of the headstones - some dating back to the late 1800's, were adorned with newer monuments. They appear to have been installed in the last decade or so, many of them on either on top top of or alongside their older, existing memorial. Some artificial flowers lay quietly next to a few of the markers. With so few residents in the area, maintaining the cemetery is obviously a labor of love for somebody.

Coming home, I developed the roll in Ilfotec DD-x 1:4, at 20℃ (68℉) for 10 minutes. I've used this combination once or twice before. But not often enough, though; the negatives came out great.  Ilford fp4+ always looks a little on the thin side to my eyes, but it scans beautifully.  I had also considered using a roll of Ilford Delta 100 that I had brought along, but I'm glad I went with the fp4+. We'll break out the Delta next time.

We got 2019 off to a great start with this trip. I've been bookmarking some other locations in the area, so I should be able to get more Cemetery Series posts up this year.

Adventures in Street Pan

I don't do reviews on here, but it would be a mistake to not chronicle my thoughts and experiences about a certain film emulsion. I tried JCH Street Pan 400 at the behest of Jim Hair several months ago. I didn't get around to shooting any until this last August, and am just now processing it. Glad I did, too. This is good stuff.

You can google it yourself for more information, but this is a resurrected street surveillance film that was just re-purposed and re-introduced to the market back in 2016. It's contrasty and apparently possesses a good deal of red sensitivity, quite the opposite of the hp5+ I've been shooting.

Excessive grain acknowledged d/t pushing the curves in scanning.

I wasn't able to get any clouds against a blue sky for this roll, but that will be coming on my next roll (in the tank as we speak). And there will be a next roll. You see, even before processing this first one, I picked up a dozen or so more just because of what I'd been seeing around the interwebs.

I souped these in d-76 1:1 for the prescribed 10.5 minutes on the box. The negatives came out pretty thin, but a quick conversation with Jim told me that he extends that time to 16 minutes. Surprisingly, though, there was a lot of detail present, even when the negatives were fairly transparent. I think my grain is more pronounced because of the compensation in scanning, but examples I've seen show a fairly soft pattern in that regard. We'll see if the extra time in development gets me closer to a more ideal negative.

I can see this being a good film to use for the coming winter months, outside with cloudy/flat light conditions. I'm not sure if it's a good indoor film to push or not; it seems too expensive to do much experimentation on. A brick ran me north of $100 USD. Given the reported effort to bring this stuff to market, I can't complain much. It will be a nice mix up to go along with the rest of my arsenal this fall and winter.