I used to change film every other day. This summer I tried the opposite: one roll of HP5+,
thirty six frames, two weeks. The camera went everywhere, but the shutter stayed quiet most of the time.
By the second week I had stopped taking pictures of things that merely looked interesting.
What remained were the frames I had actually waited for: morning fog over the allotments,
the neighbour repainting his gate, a long queue at the ferry.
The contact sheet is the most honest report I have made in years. Eleven frames worth printing,
which is more than I usually get from three rolls shot in a hurry.
Grain is not the enemy
Push processing gets blamed for grain, but most of the noise in my old negatives came from underexposure,
not from development. Half a stop more light and the same developer gives a negative that prints easily.
I keep a card in the camera bag with three numbers: box speed, my working speed, and the development time
I actually use. It has saved more rolls than any light meter app.
Printing small
A 13 by 18 print on warm tone paper looks finished in a way a screen never does.
Small prints also forgive: dust that would be obvious at poster size disappears, and a stack of them
fits in a drawer instead of a wall.