The Sunbeams Analogue Photography News – Film Ladies, Film Labs and Fast Fast Film

Warmest Ahoy’s one and all from a very chilly Sunny 16 Towers! The UK is currently being covered in snow by The Beast from the East and Storm Emma, so now’s the perfect time to make a lovely cup of tea, catch up on developing the backlog of films we’ve all got and recap the last couple of weeks.

First off, we were delighted to play host to the second Women in Film show (henceforth to be known as the Underexposed podcast), helmed by our very own Rachel from Little Vintage Photography.  This month Rachel’s joined by Maite Pons and Monika Danos. If you haven’t listened yet you really should; open and honest conversations about the trials and tribulations of trying to be a creative individual producing and showing work while at the same time dealing with everything else in life that’s clammering for your attention, from hungry children to demanding clients, full time jobs to dogs that need walking.

On this weeks show Ade and Graeme were joined by Matt Wells from Ag Photographic, a highly respected film lab in the UK which also sells film and chemicals, and runs dark room courses. Matt talks about many aspects of running a film lab, from the chemicals and machinery used in the processing to the day to day organisation. If you’ve ever wondered what happens to your precious rolls of film when you send them off to be processed, this show’s for you.

Matt also shares plans for an upcoming  crowdfunding campaign to create a purpose built darkroom facility in a beautiful part of Scotland, and the many opportunities that could provide both for visitors to the area and the local analogue community. The crowdfunding will offer a wide range of rewards, for more details keep a close eye on Ag’s twitter feed.

We’re midway through this round of the Cheap shots challenge so I hope you’ve been out with your bargain bin cameras getting some sporty pictures. We’ll be running it until the end of March so you’ve got some time yet. Just hashtag your images #cheapshotschallenge and send your two favourite pictures to [email protected].

Only two weeks to go until the Photography Show at the NEC, we’re all very excited at the prospect of not just the three of us getting together, but also anyone else who’s going to join us on Sunday 18th. We’ll meet up at 11 am, spend some time chatting, comparing cameras and of course having a look around the show for about 3 hours, and then the plan is to hop on the train for the short ride into Birmingham central to go take some pictures, and hopefully grab a beer or a cuppa! Very much hoping you can join us, I don’t think we’ll outnumber the digital shooters in attendance, but we’ll definitely have the cooler cameras!

On the subject of meet-ups, friend of the show Martin Smith has started a new website called Photowalk.me to help people organise and find Photowalks all over the world. The site has only just launched and there are already 5 events listed including Hamish’s! Check it out if you want to catch up with some like minded photographers, or if you want to get your own event going.

And finally, it wouldn’t be a news roundup if didn’t mention Kodak’s announcement of the return of Tmax 3200. This is unambiguously good news, to many people Kodak IS film photography, and this news will give greater confidence to the broader public that the analog photography resurgence is real. Would it be nice if it was available in 120 right now? Of course it would, but the absence of 120 doesn’t in any way lessen the positive of a “new” high speed b&w film, even if it is currently only 35mm. And yes, Ilford’s Delta 3200 never went away, is a cracking film, AND is already available in 120, so if you love that, keep on using it! It’s a win win! Literally nobody has lost anything, only gained! Hurrah!

And that’s the lot for this update. We’re going to be transferring our podcast hosting over the course of the next week, which will hopefully be a smooth and seamless process, but if you run into any problems with the feed then let us know – you can catch us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Until next time, shoot all the film, try to be super nice, and go support Hamish and his work on 35mmc on his Patreon page, because creating and maintaining 35mmc is hard work and expensive, and we’re very glad he does it!

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