First Films in Years

This afternoon I developed my first black+white film in I don't know how long... likely more than 10 years... or thereabouts, hard to remember. All the time that I got the Arca-Swiss back, I took pictures with color negative and b+w film in parallel. I have two cassettes for the Arca, so that is easy to do. The color negs I give for development and scanning at "Tolis" lab (Nikitara 9 / Em. Benaki, they do C-41 up to 120 film). The b+w films went into a box.

Now I signed up at the Photoclub Ennea, which is a photography club, which has its own darkroom set up with all the necessary equipment - up till 6x9cm, which is by coincidence just what I need. The yearly membership dues are a bit steep for me, but since all the equipment use and the chemicals is included, it's better than buying all the darkroom stuff myself.

After I signed up, I went right to develop my first batch of films. The place is well organized and apart from some leaking development tanks and some spirals refusing to wind up my films for a short while I didn't have any problems. I developed first 2 films, then 4 in one batch. Next week I'll do some more and then I'll start to print stuff.

It feels a bit weird to do this kind of thing again. I haven't really forgotten anything. All the little tasks feel completely natural and normal, like I've never stopped. Working in another lab sure is different though, gotta find where stuff is and how "they do it" there. In the end though it's nice to take the neatly processed films home and look at the negs!