Back to the Future

A first attempt to reacquaint myself with analogue photography. Picking up my 40 year-old Canon A1 after decades, and armed with some trusty Ilford FP4 Plus stock, I headed off for a couple of Photowalks along the Macclesfield Canal. Rain, barges, bridges and the inevitable guard dog, then home again to make a few test portraits with a "willing" model.

I used to develop my own film using the standard Patterson kits and Ilford solutions, but after a long leave of absence my recent attempts evidenced that I had clearly lost my touch and the result was abject failure. To avoid further knocks to my dwindling confidence, I determined to have my next attempts handled professionally, hopefully with more encouraging results! These are selected photographs made on those photowalks - work in progress and still a lot to remember, not least how to use an exposure meter and also that your settings are not automatically recorded in a file! Nevertheless a generally quite pleasing result.  

My thanks to Come Through Lab, Manchester for their very efficient, speedy service developing, scanning and delivering the negatives. Completely painless and straightforward…. and no mess! Come to think of it, this might be the best way to proceed in the future.