Inspiration At The Oddest Time

Doing dishes on a Friday afternoon is not a time nor activity I would have thought where inspiration would hit. Yet that is exactly what happened today. I was finishing up the morning dishes and thinking about what I wanted to shoot this weekend. While some of the subjects that were coming to mind were interesting, none were grabbing me. I’m sure you will understand. I was nearing the end of the dishes and was no further along in deciding what to shoot this weekend than when I had started. Then as I watched the water bead off of one of the last plates as I rinsed it, inspiration hit and hit hard. So hard that I immediately dried my hands and ran for the F4.

The setup was pretty simple. An upside-down plate that I had re-wet and lit with a mixture of late morning light from the kitchen window and augmented by the flashlight from my phone. The camera was my trusty F4 with a 50mm f/1.4 mounted and loaded with Ilford HP5+ rated at EI 400. After a few shots I realized that the 50mm, while it can focus fairly close, wasn’t getting the job done so I attached a +2 closeup filter which ended up working quite nicely.

Development was proving to be the sticking point. The problem being my uncertainty as to which developer I wanted to use, D23, or Pyrocat HD. Either developer would give a look that I knew I would love but I couldn’t decide which look I wanted. For nearly half an hour I kept arguing with myself over which developer I would use. As soon as I had made my mind up I immediately doubted my decision and the internal bickering began afresh. The frustration became so intense I threw my frustration out in the form of a tweet on Twitter. Back and forth, forth and back I went until I finally said “Fine, Thorton’s Two-Bath it is!”. Where that came from I do not know. But I did know that if I didn’t rush to get the developer out and measured up quickly that the indecision would return. Being a 400 rated film my time was 5 minutes for both A and B baths. Agitation for bath A was 30 seconds of the initial minute then 10 seconds for the remaining minutes. Bath B was agitated for the 5 seconds at the beginning of the cycle and then 5 seconds each minutes for the remaining time. Normal stop bath and fix.

So, why did I finally go with the two-bath? The way I explained my rationale to myself was that Thorton would be a give me sharpness closer to Pyrocat HD but yet retain the grain treatment that I would get from D23. The verdict as to whether I actually achieved this goal or not is left up to the viewer. Suffice it to say that I am quite pleased with the results and have been, once again, shown the value of having Thorton on hand.

So what are your thoughts? Would you have chosen Thorton? If not, I would love to hear what you would have done had this been your roll of film. If you have any questions/comments about anything in this post, please feel free to throw them in the comments below. Good, bad, or ugly.

God Bless and Happy Shooting!