i have been exposing film without processing it for about a year now. i had about 20 or 25 rolls of assorted black/white and color
35mm and a couple of rolls of 120 film. i also had about 30 sheets of assorted expired color and black and white 4×5 sheets. i had wanted
to process the film months ago, but i’d cut my finger or something random so i couldn’t. i am not someone who wears latex or nitril gloves when
i process film, i know i probably should, but when i process sheet film i can’t feel the sheets to pry them apart, and it makes it extra hard to shuffle
them in a tray. i suppose if i used a hand tank, or still used hangers / tank, or a unicolor drum it wouldn’t matter much, but i put film in a tray and shuffling them from bottom to top, over and over again, first in water, then in developer for whatever amount of time i need to, and then in water and then in fix and while i have attempted to use gloves, it just didn’t work well. i always use them when i make cyanotypes, both coating and washing. and i sometimes use them when i coat stuff with liquid emulsion. … anyways …
so i processed about 5 rolls of film and all 30 sheets on sunday.
they were all from last fall. some local stuff, some things i made when i was out of town.
there was a regatta when i was in boston that saturday. i don’t remember which day it was, i just remember it was sunny and cloudy and cold.
i parked by MIT and walked across the street with my box and made a handful of exposures. then i drove to magazine beach and did the same sort
of thing.
