Early in 2020, say around the beginning of March, I had lunch with a photographer friend. Over lunch, we both agreed that we hadn't been shooting any 35mm film for too long a time, so I loaded up my Minox 35GT-E with a roll of Ilford XP2 Super and intended to shoot it over the course of a week.
Then the pandemic lockdown happened. Things got delayed. I finally made the last exposure on that roll of film about three or four weeks ago. And it kicked around on my desk waiting to be processed until three days ago. I processed it in my usual manner—daylight loading Agfa Rondix 35 tank on the kitchen counter, at whatever room temperature was that day (about 75°F), in HC-110 mixed 1:49 dilution for 7.5 minutes. I process *all* my B&W film that way, it's a funny thing that all of them work with those numbers. :) This was the first photo on the roll. It's a picture of the still very new to me Salsa Beargrease (SBG for short) that I'd custom built—very very quickly, just as the pandemic lockdown was starting to happen!—after my Specialized Fatboy Comp Carbon semi-custom was stolen on the 29th of February, 2020. I suspect this photo was made around the end of March/beginning of April... It was before the new carbon wheels arrived, before I'd found and fitted the tire pump, before I fitted the heavy lock to the top tube or the water bottle cage. Without those accessories, what a lean and simple look it has! https://flic.kr/p/2mfjf2y :: Salsa Beargrease in Japan Town - San Jose 2020 Minox 35GT-E + Ilford XP2 Super Scanned w Leica CL + Macro-Elmar-R 100mm f/4 In the early pandemic year, everything I'd come to enjoy on my rides was closed: cafes, meeting places, etc. And the sidewalks and streets were devoid of people, the gathering places were empty wastelands, only a memory of what normally was. I cycled anyway, through my old loops, carried my lunch, and took rest stops near my old favorite haunts. I was insistent that since bicycling was classified as 'safe', I was not going to silo myself into my home and just sit. I cycled nearly every day, walked nearly every day, and meditated since I couldn't enjoy much of conversation other than on the phone or on a zoom meeting. Looking at this photo, I remember how fresh and new this bicycle felt then. And it's worked out beautifully over the past year, accumulated about 4000 miles or so. Can't wait to turn that over in the next 4000 miles! BTW: This was the first time I have used the Essential Film Holder, made by Andrew Clifforth in the UK (https://clifforth.co.uk), to hold both this and the roll of 645 film I scanned right after it. It's a simple, well-designed, and well thought out device for holding film flat and secure to make scanning with a copy camera easy and fast ... Once set up, I scanned both rolls of film in less than 20 minutes. It does an excellent job and is economically priced—well worth it! onwards, always onwards! G — Godfrey DiGiorgi - [email protected] "The question is not what you look at, but what you see." - Thoreau -- %(real_name)s Pentax-Discuss Mail List To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
