After The Overnight Rain Shower

As the work week gave way to the weekend I spent my Friday night brainstorming what to shoot only to fall asleep with no clear idea of what I would be shooting. Overnight we were blessed with a fairly heavy thunderstorm. Heavy enough to wake me from a pretty deep sleep. It was then that I knew what I would be shooting in the morning, provided everything stayed wet long enough. I fell back asleep with the satisfaction of knowing I had my weekend project ironed out.

Because of the time of day (early morning) and the fact that I didn’t want to lug my tripod around with me, I decided on shooting Ilford HP5. That should (and did) give me shutter speeds sufficient to handhold the shots. My camera of choice for this outing was the venerable Nikon FM with the 50mm f/1.4 mounted on it. I did end up using two other lenses, the 55mm Micro and Tamron 35-80 Macro. I will add which lens was used in the photo description. Metering was accomplished using the FM’s built-in meter with me compensating that reading based on what I felt was needed to get the exposure I wanted. Yes, I know that’s not SOP, but sometimes I like to live on the edge. This is, after all, supposed to be a fun hobby, right?

I had initially planned on using my favorite developer (D23) on this roll. I have had such great success with that developer on many previous rolls that my mind usually defaults to using it. However, while I was shooting I kept thinking about last weeks film developed in Thorton’s Two-Bath and how much I really liked the results from that. It’s like a sharper version of D23. I thought long enough about it that I talked myself into using Thorton’s on this roll as well. Since I was shooting a faster film I chose 5 minutes per bath as my development time. Bath A was continually agitated (using the agitation stick) for the first minute and 10 seconds each remaining minute. Bath B was continuously agitated for the first 30 seconds, then for 5 seconds at the top of that minute and then 5 seconds at the top of each remaining minute. Fixing was done in TF-2 for twice the clearing time.

Once again, Barry Thorton did not disappoint. The tones and grain treatment that both it and D23 give my films makes me more than happy. If you haven’t tried this developer yet I highly recommend you do so. The recipe for this and D23 can be found on my “Film and Chemistry I use” page.

Thank you so much for taking the time to stop by. If you have any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to put them in the comment area below. Until next time, God Bless and Happy Shooting!