I’ve had an old Pentax P30n hanging around for about 10 years that hasn’t seen any real use. Despite the camera being dead cheap, the cost of processing and scanning film was a bit scary and after running one or two rolls of colour film through it, the P30n was set aside.
When the novel Coronavirus pandemic began to spread like wildfire, state and municipal authorities in Hawaii were quick to act. A broad-based lockdown was ordered, and while it knocked out Hawaii’s tourism-reliant economy in about three weeks – unemployment skyrocketed from under 2 percent to nearly 40 percent in a month – deaths and COVID-19 cases were kept under control.
The other weekend I decided it might be fun to attempt to entertain Connie my 8 year old daughter with some photography. I’ve given her a little point & shoot digital which she had been having some fun snapping with, so I thought I might show her the joys of the opposite end of the photography spectrum: shooting, developing and digitising large format film.
In this unusual period we are all living through, I have tried to keep the momentum going, reading quite a few articles on internet and trying to stay focused on what/how to improve my whole experience. Finally, despite only starting my journey just a month ago, I shot my first roll of 120 which I am fairly happy with.
I’d been shooting film alongside digital for about a decade, and once took a course in b&w film developing. Unfortunately, I suffered an allergic reaction to the chemicals, which induced a major asthma attack. I was bitterly disappointed with the experience and put to the back of my mind any thought of ever developing my own film at home.
