Friday, July 4, 2008

darkroom frustration

Spent the afternoon with Eric in the darkroom to develop some of the colour reversal I shot in black and white chemistry. This generally works, but today I looked at the bucket of ID-11 and it looked quite green. I decided, wisely, to test it before committing. Sure enough, it had oxydized and was no longer useful as a developer. I had another box so I mixed it up and began to develop. As it mixes hot, the development time is short, but I am confident of the charts I've made. However, everything ended up dark. The second test was also dark. I theorized that the temperature might have greater impact on the colour film than it does on black and white, so I emersed a container of cold water into it to cool it (like a big ice cube) but the next test was also very dark. I had assumed that this was all the result of overdeveloping, but then it occurred to me that the original film, being a 20+ year old roll of 7239 reversal, might be the problem. I will likely need to re-shoot. I accomplished nothing today.

No comments: