Yesterday morning we had a electrical breaker crap out so the pumps that supplied water to my house were down. Meanwhile I noticed that there was frogs spawn in my swimming pool so me and my wife managed to get it out of the pool, some of the spawn was still lying on the sandstone around the pool so I went into the house to get some hot water out of our hot and cold water machine. My wife questioned what I was doing and when I told he to wash away the rest of the spawn she asked didn't I use some water from the pool duuuuuuuu.
Anyway I grabbed a 3 later jug and ducked it into the swimming pool and washed the little buggers away, I kept most of the water in the jug and put it in my outside kitchen which also acts as a wet room for my darkroom.
I then went out for lunch with my wife and I took my Hasy 503 with me as I wanted to shoot another roll of color 120 and develop it myself.......practice makes perfect they say. over the course of lunch and walking around the boat lagoon I managed to shoot off a roll of Etkar 100. I was excited to get home so that I could try my hand at C41 again. When I got home I took the C41 chemicals out of the fridge then I remembered that one of my friends had mentioned that there were white dots on my last film that could have came from the chemicals especially the BLIX. So I decided to throw that down the drain and mix a new batch of Dev BLIX and Stabalizer. I proceeded to mix a litter of each one using (Wait for it) the frigging water in the 3 ltr jug that was full of swimming pool water, it was only when I went to mix the stabiliser that the bomb dropped and I was like WTF have I just done.........after having a screaming match with myself and scaring the crap out of the nabours I calmed down and decided to move forward with the new recipe and see what happened.
I then went into the darkroom to load the film into my Peterson tank. I used to be very good at loading 120 film onto the reels but its been a long while so I started the process and first time around I got the film jammed so as you do I twisted the real to get the film out and put the film on the table, that's when the shit hit the fan again. I managed to drop one half of the reel on the floor and for the love of me I couldn't find it (My darkroom is about 15 x10 feet with a table stool fridge and rubbish bin), so I am on my hands and knees trying to find the the second half of the reel ......... cursing and swearing at the same time, luckily enough I had locked the darkroom door as the next thing my wife is trying to get into the dark room, so I am now screaming at her to stay outside and all I can here is "What are you doing in there".....nightmare.
After about what seemed like an eternity ~5 minutes I found the little bugger and went to sit back down on the stool to continue to load the film, well in my rearranging the layout out of the darkroom while looking for the half of the reel I managed to move/knock over the stool so when I went to sit on it I ended up on my arse again and with the half a reel flying through the air, this time landing luckily on my legs. Now with both halfs joined back together I proceeded to load the film and get it safely into the peterson tank...............
The developing went well (Im using one of those Sous cookers to keep the chemicals at the correct temperature (fantastic idea if you dont already use one).
Now that I have mastered the C41 process I think I will shoot some B&W for a wee while
Neil
Anyway I grabbed a 3 later jug and ducked it into the swimming pool and washed the little buggers away, I kept most of the water in the jug and put it in my outside kitchen which also acts as a wet room for my darkroom.
I then went out for lunch with my wife and I took my Hasy 503 with me as I wanted to shoot another roll of color 120 and develop it myself.......practice makes perfect they say. over the course of lunch and walking around the boat lagoon I managed to shoot off a roll of Etkar 100. I was excited to get home so that I could try my hand at C41 again. When I got home I took the C41 chemicals out of the fridge then I remembered that one of my friends had mentioned that there were white dots on my last film that could have came from the chemicals especially the BLIX. So I decided to throw that down the drain and mix a new batch of Dev BLIX and Stabalizer. I proceeded to mix a litter of each one using (Wait for it) the frigging water in the 3 ltr jug that was full of swimming pool water, it was only when I went to mix the stabiliser that the bomb dropped and I was like WTF have I just done.........after having a screaming match with myself and scaring the crap out of the nabours I calmed down and decided to move forward with the new recipe and see what happened.
I then went into the darkroom to load the film into my Peterson tank. I used to be very good at loading 120 film onto the reels but its been a long while so I started the process and first time around I got the film jammed so as you do I twisted the real to get the film out and put the film on the table, that's when the shit hit the fan again. I managed to drop one half of the reel on the floor and for the love of me I couldn't find it (My darkroom is about 15 x10 feet with a table stool fridge and rubbish bin), so I am on my hands and knees trying to find the the second half of the reel ......... cursing and swearing at the same time, luckily enough I had locked the darkroom door as the next thing my wife is trying to get into the dark room, so I am now screaming at her to stay outside and all I can here is "What are you doing in there".....nightmare.
After about what seemed like an eternity ~5 minutes I found the little bugger and went to sit back down on the stool to continue to load the film, well in my rearranging the layout out of the darkroom while looking for the half of the reel I managed to move/knock over the stool so when I went to sit on it I ended up on my arse again and with the half a reel flying through the air, this time landing luckily on my legs. Now with both halfs joined back together I proceeded to load the film and get it safely into the peterson tank...............
The developing went well (Im using one of those Sous cookers to keep the chemicals at the correct temperature (fantastic idea if you dont already use one).
Now that I have mastered the C41 process I think I will shoot some B&W for a wee while
Neil
