Unsuccessful Day

The plan for today was to photograph on the Thames at low tide. Explore the river bed and photograph what is revealed by the tide going down.

I wake up early, loaded 10 sheets of 5x4 Ilford FP4 125 into the darkslide made a coffe to take with me and went to the train. I wrote in my previous blog that after calling back home I found out that my mum was t feeling well and my dads called an ambulance.

I still carry one going out, as it wasn’t much that I could do from home or anywhere else.

On the Thames I struggled to keep my mind focused, I was keep making mistakes in calculating the exposure. After I spot read and calculate the exposure needed, I use an ND filter to slow down the exposure. I prefer using 2 or 4 seconds, which I devise in faster exposures of 1/4, 1/8, 1/15, 1/30. With faster exposures I aim to capture the highlights of the water moving, these should create irregular traces moving through the image. As my mind was busy worrying at home I was keep making mistakes in calculating the exposure or counting the exposures. By 4pm I decided is no point and went home. I stillM

ange to the close 9 of the sheets.

After getting home, I had a coffee and than starting loading them into the tank. I was planing to write a tutorial how to process film. Ironically after runing the dev, stop and fixer bath when I opened the tank all my 12 sheets were ruined. They moved into the tank and stick to each other failing to be in the chemistry correctly. I felt so helpless, so desperate and desapointed. I realised later that it wasn’t my fault really, it was a flow of the tank and the top section that ment to keep the films disengaged and the films moved inside while I was agitating the chemistry.

So frustrating, such a waste for 12 sheets of Ilgord FP4 (not cheap) but also 2 days of work, as I loaded films I exposed today and Saturday. I’m so tired . So on the edge to just give up.