Field Notes

Film photography, darkroom work and long walks.

Pushing HP5 two stops in winter light

Short days leave little choice: rate it at 1600, stand-develop, and accept the grain. The shadows hold more than you expect if you give the developer time and leave it alone.

A cheap fix for light leaks

Old rangefinders almost always leak at the hinge. A strip of black flocking tape along the seal channel did more than any replacement kit I tried this year.

Contact sheets are still worth it

Scanning everything is fast, but a contact sheet on the table shows the roll as a whole: what worked, what repeated, and what was only luck.