Thursday, 16 July 2026
Cornwall, a land of drama and mood
Cornwall is a beautiful landscape, from Lands End to Liskeard, there is always something new to discover. But the light in Cornwall does have an eerie quality and the sea mist will often create a mood. A boiling sea crashing over quays and the wind howling off of the Atlantic, makes an invigorating walk. I love Cornwall in the Autumn, when pubs have their fireplaces lit and an afternoon looking out of a window as nature envelops the landscape. The Cornish beers are great as well and match well with a decent lunch. This selection of photos were all taken on a 6x9 Camera while I was on holiday. We did have a couple of nice days but it was mostly dramatic weather.
Wednesday, 15 July 2026
Redscale - Variable results.
Redscale is an experimental technique and therefore the results are highly dependent on the following
- Film Stock
- Expiry date of film
- ISO that the film is shot at
Looking at the ISO, assuming fresh, in date, film there are several exposure methods
- Underexposure
- Correct exposure
- Overexposure
Redscale film is a method of reversing the film so that the back of the film and red emulsion layer are exposed before the green and blue. Because the film is exposed the "wrong way around" you need to compensate and allow extra light.
This is where the concepts of over, correct and underexposure can be brought into play.
As an example, suppose the film stock is normally rated at ISO 400, exposing at ISO 400 would give a hugely underexposed negative.
- Underexposure - 1 stop extra light (ISO 200)
- The resulting photograph should be Dark Red
- Correct exposure - 2 stops extra light (ISO 100)
- The resulting photograph should be Orange
- Overexposure - 3 stops extra light (ISO 50)
- The resulting photograph should be Yellow
Much of this will depend on your camera and it's ability to change ISO from frame to frame.
The experimental nature of this technique means that you shouldn't be too precious until you have dialled in a filmstock with a camera, i.e. you've experimented.
Note the predominantly orange tones.
Note the overall yellow tones.
As a post script to this, I have made a roll of Harman Phoenix colour film into a roll of redscale. Harman do this themselves and sell it as Harman Red 125.
They suggest an ISO of 125, which is two thirds of a stop for best (their suggested) results.
My camera, the Lomo LC-A just has ISO 50, ISO 100, ISO 200, ISO 400, so I'll set ISO 100 but I can try 200 and 50 as well. Thats the beauty of experimental techniques, you can experiment!
Tuesday, 14 July 2026
London - A work trip
My working life has always included national travel. There was a piece of work that came up recently that meant I needed to go to London for 3 days. While there I took the opportunity to play hooky for an afternoon. My work colleague is a metal detectorist and someone who takes deep dives into history. The afternoon in question, meant that we had completed the work but our train tickets were booked for the following day (a money saving technique by our employer). So rather than sit around in our hotel or spend the day in a pub (not at £8.75 a pint thank you very much!) we decided to have a walk around London to see the stuff that normally gets left out on guided tours.
Here are a selection of my photographs from that walk.
St Alphege Church near the City of London Wall
St Bartholomew the Great Church
Smithfield Market
St Alphege Church near the City of London Wall
Monday, 13 July 2026
Redscale - A follow up post
If nowt else there is a blog post on the perils of expired C41.. Sometimes you hit the jackpot but other times...
Dave Whenham
When carrying out photography using experimental techniques with expired film and a LOMO LC-A camera, the results are definitely not guaranteed. Recently after rediscovering some Redscale negatives in my archive, I decided to write a blog on how to make Redscale film at home.
As I had a trip to London lined up, I compounded the folly by rolling some Redscale and loading it into a LOMO LC-A. The first roll was expired but boxed and otherwise "new". This first roll was a roll of Kodak UltraMax 400. Crucially, as it turned out, the provenance was known.
The second roll was a "found" roll of Fujifilm Superia Xtra 400. This roll was vintage 2008/9 and was purchased from 7dayshop.com. "Found in a box of junk that had all sorts of stuff added the day I moved house. It turns out that the Fujifilm had been exposed normally before at some dim and distant time in the past. I then made a roll of Redscale out of it. The results were, um, "interesting".
So beware of rolls of film of unknown provenance.
Or as Dave says "Crimp your shot 35mm"
Thanks to Dave Whenham for providing the processing and scanning services for the C41 films. His patience is appreciated.
In any case, keeping records might prove useful.
Enjoy the Keepers from the UltraMax.
Natural History Museum
South Kensington with a genuine London bus
Natural History Museum
Street photography in Redscale
Tube station overground
Thursday, 9 July 2026
Inverness - A work Trip
Inverness? But thats in Sconny Botland? Oh well there was work to be completed and EasyJet ran a flight from Bristol Airport to Inverness Airport. I packed my Holga into my bag and a couple of rolls of Black and White film. There may be an opportunity to take some photos. I've been to Inverness a couple of times now and I have enjoyed the trips. I had a walk around Inverness on the first trip as well as a chance to visit Loch Ness. These are the resulting Holga Pictures.
Monday, 6 July 2026
Gateshead - A work Trip
In November 2025, I was dispatched, by EasyJet from Bristol, to complete some work in Newcastle. The flights were not conducive to the normal model of travel to site, do the work and go home again. This meant that I had an afternoon spare and having taken my trusty Holga GN 120 with me and a few rolls of film, I was able to capture some Holga Pictures. These are the Black and White shots. I did shoot some colour and so I may create a blog with those in.
Sunday, 5 July 2026
Redscale film
At the risk of upsetting those film manufacturers who sell RedScale film, Redscale film is really not a mystery. Redscale film is created by shooting a colour film the wrong way. Normally when you load a film into a camera, the correct procedure is to load the film so that the emulsion faces the lens and is exposed to light directly. With Redscale the film is orientated so the the emulsion is facing away from the lens and the exposure is made by allowing the light to pass through the orange plastic film before hitting the emulsion. It should be noted that the colour layers of a film are arranged blue, green and red. Normal exposure will allow the light to start with the blue working its way back to the red layer. With Redscale its the red layer that gets exposed first.
The photos in the blog were taken using homemade Redscale film from Fujifilm Superia 400. The shots were made in Tunisia in 2005.
The orange plastic film carrier acts as a colour filter and causes the film to record shades of red or orange or yellow, depending on whether the film is overexposed, correctly exposed or underexposed.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, you can choose to buy Redscale film, but making your own is much more fun.
Place a roll of 35mm colour film into a dark bag, along with a roll of sellotape and a pair of scissors. Once the dark bag is sealed , pull the film out of the canister. About an inch from the canister cut the film. Then turn the canister through 180° and sellotape the two back together. Wind the film back into the film canister , leaving the tongue out. Then pull a short length of film from the canister and cut off the tongue. Reshape the film tongue and voila! You have your own Redscale film.
Ive just made a couple of rolls. Watch this space for the results.
Exposure of your homemade Redscale film is achieved by rating the film 2 stops slower than box speed. Normally I use an ISO 400 speed film for Redscale and rate it at ISO 100. If you consider how to use an orange filter with black and white film it is the same principle.
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