Field Journal

Notes from the kitchen, the bike and the darkroom.

2026-09-14

First roll of HP5 in years

A friend lent me an old rangefinder over the summer, so I bought a few rolls of black-and-white film and tried to remember how any of this worked.

The biggest change is not the camera. It is the waiting. With only thirty-six frames you stop shooting everything and start choosing.

What came back

About a third of the roll was out of focus, two frames were double exposures I do not remember making, and four or five are pictures I would happily hang on a wall. That ratio feels about right.

Shoot less, look longer.

I developed the roll at home in a borrowed tank. The kitchen smelled of fixer for a day, which my partner did not enjoy.

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Kept by hand since 2019.