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.

Kentmere Pan 400

Kentmere Pan 400

Kentmere Pan 400

Kentmere Pan 400

Kentmere Pan 400

Kodak Tri-X (Expired)

Kodak Tri-X (Expired)

Kodak Tri-X (Expired)

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 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. 

The photos in the blog were taken using homemade Redscale film from Fujifilm Superia 400. The shots were made in Tunisia in 2005.

A forward schedule of activity

 As previously mentioned my work life requires national travel. I have just been given a schedule for the second half of 2026. Hopefully there will be opportunity for photography on some or all of the trips

1)    South Yorkshire - August 2026

2)    Lancashire - September 2026

3)    Nottingham and Lincoln - October 2026

4)    London - November 2026

5)    Sussex and Kent - December 2026

6)    Hampshire - January 2027

7)    Devon and Avon - January 2027

8)    Scotland - February 2027

We shall see what I am able to do. 

I'll keep the Nikon F75 loaded with Kentmere Pan 400 film and travel light. I've been enjoying the Nikon F75 this year. The camera feels great in the hand and all the controls are easy to access. I've paired it with a Nikon fit Voigtlander Ultron SL-II 40mm, which is a lovely sharp lens that allows zone focusing.

London - A work Trip

In January of 2026, I took a train from my home in Somerset to London. There was work to be completed but not by me. My role was to assure the work and ensure the operational priorities of the customer were accounted for.  I stayed in Stratford in the East of London, by the Westfield Centre.  Being January, cold and lacking light, I decided to do my best with my Holga and push the film.  Not every frame was a winner but there were some nice pictures

Simplicity in Photography

How many times have we as photographers said "I am going back to simple photography"? I think at some point we have all said it.  Lately, I have been thinking about just that theme.

Some of my cameras are extremely simple. They consist of a box to prevent light from affecting the film, a lens and shutter mechanism, this allows me to chose how much light will hit the film and exactly when that will happen. Finally there is a simple mechanism to allow the film to be moved through the camera (I'm talking about 120 roll film here).

More simple still is large format photography. The film is supplied in sheets and is placed in a special frame, in the dark, and has a sliding door that can be removed when the frame is in the camera.

The mathematics involved in film photography can be mind boggling. You need the correct sized aperture, the correct speed shutter and the correct ISO film to all come together in a triangle of exposure to make an exposure on a section of film.

And then there is the problem of exact exposure values. How do we get those?  You can use a light meter. But it turns out that all meters are not created equal!

If you want to simplify things you can use the Sunny f16 rule. Just have a look outside and choose an appropriate value, while applying the Sunny f16 rule.

Exposure is such a minefield. You don't want blown out highlights or blocked up shadows. You want shadows to have detail and highlights to have detail. You probably also want deep blacks, sharpness, detail. On and on and on it goes.

Eventually you get to the zone system and your mind melts.

Zone System

Sometimes it all gets a bit much! Too much maths, too much kit, too much to think about.

Those who understand the zone system think the rest of us are idiots and us idiots think life is too short for the technical complexity of the zone system and simply want to produce photographs that are interesting and have soul.

Recently I have been studying the work of Don McCullin. Don is a famous photographer who made a career shooting 35mm film using a Nikon F camera, with a 50mm prime lens. His subjects were war, famine and human depravation.

Reading his autobiography,  "Unreasonable Behavior", standing around waving a light meter about to get the best exposure settings was a hazardous occupation. A nearby, and unseen, sniper may take an accurate shot at you, ending your life.  Dons approach seems to have been to get an indicative exp setting, however he could, and then rely on the latitude of the film and his experience of exposure settings. So he could stop down or open up an aperture as he shot.  Often he would push film, Don normally used Kodak Tri-X, to ISO 800 or even 1600 if light was at a premium.

Don McCullin

The resulting negatives are astonishing, they are detailed, gritty, matching the dynamic nature of an ongoing skirmish or battle with arresting black and white photographs.

Don McCullin produced work for the Sunday Times magazine for many years, until someone in charge decided that presenting the horrors of war and famine to Englishmen, while they enjoyed their Sunday breakfast, was not on. Luxury brands complained that their products didn't sit right opposite award winning black and white photographs of dead children.

Another photographer who was disinterested in technical excellence and more interested in photographs that captures moments was Jacques Henri Lartigue. He took photographs throughout his life and built a huge catalogue of work, without being overly concerned with the technical aspects of the craft.

Jacques-henri-lartigue/

So coming back to simplicity in photography, I decided to get my Nikon F75 out, insert new batteries and take some photos.  The camera is a bit more modern than a Nikon F and has a built in light meter. 

My simplicity is to let the camera and film do the heavy lifting and just try to concentrate on producing photographs that are interesting. The photographs in this blog post are all taken on a 400 speed film that was exposed as ISO 800 and was pushed in development to ISO 800.  This is what my simplicity looks like.

As the Rolling Stones once sang, you can't always get what you want but if you try sometimes, you'll find, you get what you need.

Developing Film

Following on from my last blog, regarding my use of Ilford PQ Universal developer (and it's clones), I should perhaps expand upon the reasons why I use the dilution of 1+29.  As I mentioned in the previous blog the dilution of 1+29 allows similar development times to ID-11/D76.  Why is this important?

Firstly dilution. What does 1+29 mean?  With tools like the Massive Dev Chart app, it is easy to use the instructions given to make the development solution. The instructions state that 16.7ml of Developer is added to 483.3ml of plain water at 20 degrees centigrade. The total making 500ml of developing solution; This being the correct amount of developing solution for a roll of 120 film. Easy right?

Well yes and no. the 1+29 means the following;

1 part developer

29 parts water.

To find the correct amount of developer from this the following arithmetic is used.

1+29 = 30

500/30 = 16.7 (the / means divide and the 500 is the amount of developing solution used in milliliters).

The one part is now found in our formula 1+29

To find the 29 parts simply multiply 1 part by 29

16.7*29=483.3 (* means multiply)

so 16.7+483.3=500

Measuring fractions of a milliliter is impossible, and quite frankly unnecessary. I measure 17ml of developer and top up with water to the half liter.

17+483=500ml.

The time taken for development is critical, up to a point. The Massive Dev Chart app will provide timings for particular films. For example it states that when developing Kentmere 400 in PQ Universal, the development time should be 8 minutes and 15 seconds. Individual timings are unimportant here but any developer and timing that is used should be greater than 5 minutes and less than 10 minutes, as a guideline.

Why should the time be longer than 5 minutes? There are two reasons why this might be so.

• The ratio of neat developer to water to make up the developer solution that will be used, will be higher and there is more chance of uneven development on the resulting negative.
• The timing will be too short to guarantee consistency; A small mistake in timing, for example starting your timer late, can have a large detrimental effect on the negative.

It is worth noting that the above points apply to processing film by hand in a Paterson tank or similar.  Machine developing has been designed to allow short development times, normal contrast and lower dilutions of chemicals.

It is also worth noting that the standard developer, ID-11/D76 from Ilford and Kodak respectively, have timings that are between 7 and 9 minutes, for development using a stock solution, that, in general, is the recommended way .  This is no coincidence! These timings allow for better consistency in negative development by ordinary people. Shorter or longer timings require experience and a well practiced technique.

So to sum up, the importance of a dilution of 1+29 allows timings of between 7 and 9 minutes, or thereabouts, which mitigates any inconsistencies in technique and produces beautiful negatives of a standard contrast.

Image taken on TMAX 400 film and developed in PQ Universal 1+29.

PQ Universal developer.

 It's a funny thing that Ilford sell a liquid developer called PQ Universal, suggesting the developer can be used to develop film and paper, but then go on to state in their datasheet that they don't recommend the developer for 120 or 35mm film use, though sheet film is okay.

This kind of contradiction is the kind of thing that will intrigue my brain and cause me to want to investigate further.

So investigate I have.

Film developers fall into two broad categories.  These are;

1.  MQ (Metol-Hydroquinone) based
2.  PQ (Phenidone-Hydroquinone) based.

The MQ or PQ formula utilises the effect that the two developer agents, Metol and Hydroquinone are "superadditive" when used together. The development process will cause Metol or Phenidone to become oxidised and therefore it's effectiveness as a developer will be reduced.  The addition of Hydroquinone to Metol or Phenidone has a recharging effect on Metol or Phenidone, making the developer much more stable in use.  This will allow more films to be developed in a solution than with a single development agent alone. The superadditive effect also prevent sudden death syndrome in film developers, which was previously an issue, certainly in the commercial processing laboratories.

Examples of MQ developers are ID-11/D76 and Adox FX-39 II. Examples of PQ developers are Ilford DDX, Kodak TMAX developer and Microphen.

The introduction of PQ developers, in general,  in the 1950s was to add stability to developers and reduce development times. The reduction of development times was important to commercial processing laboratories who could then process more films in a day. In the 1950s, normal people had the disposable income to buy a camera and shoot films during family events. During this time most people would drop their film to the chemist who would in turn send the film to a commercial lab via a collection service.

A downside of MQ developers is that Metol is a skin irritant and can cause dermatitis, especially for those poor folk who worked in a commercial lab, processing hundreds of films in a day.  PQ based developers simply do not cause the same skin condition and are seen as a less toxic and safer developer than MQ based ones.

Another point to consider with the rise of commercial processing labs is that the camera film itself would need to be consistent in use, but able to be processed in a batch system.  Labs wouldn't gather, for example, all the Tri-X together and process them all at once, no a developer was required so that you could process all 100 speed films together. If you look at the Massive Dev Chart today you'd think that each film needs different times, different developers etc. To get the best out of each film, this may be true, but to process family snaps and general photography you can get away with being more general.

Ilford PQ Universal was once also sold by a chemical company called May and Baker under the trade name Suprol. May and Baker supplied all of the commercial processing labs in the UK and used to sell Suprol by the drum.

Looking at the instructions for Suprol in machine developing, you can get the time down to a less than two minutes per film and all films can be developed with standard times. They simply don't distinguish between the different ISOs.  

Suprol can also be replenished to keep a tank of chemicals working indefinitely.

With automation, made possible by machinery and electronic timing systems, you can be consistent in processing films and get decent results for all film types, certainly good enough for family snaps.

I should say that hobbyist photographers were likely to shun commercial labs and use a smaller processing lab that could treat their precious film with care and hand develop it according to the instructions provided by the photographer during the 1950s  and 1960s.

Suprol is described by May and Baker as a fine grain, high acutance developer.

The thing about the chemical industry is that the formulas used seem to be common knowledge. Hence you get Ilford ID-11 and Kodak D-76 being identical when dilutions and timings are considered and also give identical results (i.e. they are interchangeable).

So it's no surprise that while May and Baker produced industrial quantities of Suprol, Ilford produced an identical product and called it Ilford PQ Universal.  I use Fotospeed PD5, which is identical to Suprol (still sold by a comapny called Champion) and Ilford PQ Universal, but is much lower cost. Even the data sheets are identical, apart from branding.

I use PD5/PQ Universal/Suprol at a dilution of 1+29. This gives me the ability to develop 14 120 films in 250ml of developer, when diluted as a one shot developer for each film.  That means that one litre of undiluted developer will process 56 films.  So from my point of view it's ultra economical.

For me the use of PQ universal is like having all the advantages of Rodinal Acutance, without the grain.  I know some people "Frankenstein" mixtures of Rodinal and D-76 to get similar results.

As far as use is concerned, the dilution of 1+29 gives similar development times to D-76; in fact where no timings are given for PQ Universal, I often use the D-76/ID-11 timings as a starting point.  My agitation scheme is to use Ilford agitation, although I reduce the initial agitation from one minute to 30 seconds and am very gentle with the inversions, we are not trying to emulate a Hotpoint Twin Tub.  Agitation builds contrast fast and so for normal contrast negatives, gently Bentley is the way forward.

PQ Universal can be used to push films, with the associated longer development times.  Lower dilutions of 1+9 or 1+19 have really short development times and standard processing methods will produce high contrast negatives.  This is great for copying documents but not for pictorial uses, unless one is trying to emulate Dido Moriyama.

All photos in this blog were taken by the author and developed in Fotospeed PD5 at 1+29.