1995, ha! I still have Panatomic-X 35mm in my film fridge, bought that year and two years before when Kodak dumped its last stocks of this film on the Australian market. It processes and prints okay. No 120 rolls, I did have one I used in 1983 that did the same trick with the paper back numbers, I suspect it was a leftover from the 1960s I had been given as a throwaway. Still have those negs, never printed.
According to my notebook for the '90s, back then I processed everything in D76 1:1. Midyear I souped a roll of Tri-X a friend had taken in 1981 or 1982. Played a bit with the developer and got surprisingly good images out of it, my friend admitted to mixed feelings when I gave him a contact sheet, the images were all of his divorced wife, the farm he'd had to sell to pay her out, and their by then long-deceased dogs. Bittersweet memories.
That year I was two months in Indonesia, trying to get work (in architecture design) from various Suharto government agencies but they weren't giving any work to uncorrupt foreigners, so I bailed out. I had two Nikkormat ELs with me and shot a lot of color neg film. Mostly happy-crappy snaps as my brain was working elsewhere, I've now destroyed almost all those images. The ELs were sold to someone last December, he is using them and they still work okay. Good gear lasts a long time.
Back home i Melbourne, several good work contracts came my way and I maxed my credit card to buy my first Contax G1 and the then-popular 28-45-90 combo. I still have this kit, also three other G1 bodies. They are among the few film cameras I still use. Good gear again. The Zeiss G lenses are amazing optical performers. I've written enough about the G series before, so I'll say no more.
According to my notes I sold A$3500 in images to stock clients. So an average year for me.
That year I made the (for me, difficult) decision that freelance photography and writing were no longer my way and it was time to settle to a new profession - in my case, architectural design. Which lasted until 2012 when I retired. Many ups and downs along the way. In good years I had more money to buy good photo gear (Hasselblads, now sold), in bad years I had to do contract project work for government agencies to keep my practice going. My professional life, in a paragraph.
Now happily retired, still into photography but Covid has rather sapped my motivation. Waiting for lockdowns to lift so I can get back to film work (B&W) and limited travel for image-making. Weather is warming up here in Victoria (Australia), so going out and camera-carrying days lie ahead.
My darkroom consisted of a venerable Durst 66 with a pitted matched lens, I used this to make amazing prints, far better than I produce nowadays with my upmarket VC7700 and Nikkors. I still have paper left from that time, all FB so still good. I used Ilford chemistry for print making, now I mix my own D76 and D72, occasionally Adox MQ-borax or Thornton's two bath with scales and raw chemistry and source whatever fixer I can at the best price.
All this deja vu, wow.
1996 was more memorable. Much more photography. One day midyear I got on an express bus from Malang, East Java to Solo, Central Java and sat next to my now partner, a much younger tourist from Malaysia on a backpack trip. We clicked, connected and coupled in 1997 and we are still together. So my life in all ways settled and I found my ideal situation and true happiness in the '90s.
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