Are you enjoying the spring so far? Ready for summer?
Or do you dive into the A/C as soon as the temps reach over 25C?
(And for my southern hemisphere friends, what are your thoughts and feelings going into winter?)
Despite my usual preferences for cool crisp air and the ability to wear a long jacket, I spent the last three weeks in Spain and Portugal, during a record setting heat wave…taking part in a workshop where I had to be outside…and staying in a hostel with people that didn’t like A/C.
Thankfully, now that I’m back in the UK, the temps are mild in comparison. Recently, we have had a string of warm sunny days and looks like we will have a few more!
The previous three springs I’ve spent here in the UK hunched over a computer keyboard working from 8am to 11pm without pause for weeks.
Not this spring though…
I have more reflections on burnout and how work habits can creep into your personal and creative life, especially when work takes up most of your waking hours. Also, how long it can take to recover! But these, I’ll share more of in a future post.
For now, let’s get into our monthly newsletter starting with the NEWS!
Recent Headlines
Omnar Lenses NK35-25 M-Mount Conversion Available for Nikonos W Nikkor 35mm F2.5
TTArtisan Releases 100mm F2.8 2X Ultra Macro Lens with Tilt, Shift, and Rotation Controls
Introducing Reto Project’s New 35mm Colour Films – GLOW and AQUA
These are on my desk to test and review! Bought with my own money :)
Pentax’s New Compact Fixed-Lens Film Camera Embraces Tradition with Mechanical Film Advance Lever
Fundraising Campaign Launches for East Texas-Based Community Darkroom
Film photographers unite! Let’s help Jamie set up this awesome community darkroom.
Dubblefilm Brings Back Analogue TV Distortion with Fun New Film GLITCH
I picked up a roll of this in Madrid so look for a Youtube review coming soonish :)
Announcing Analogue Spotlight 2023 – Save the Date for October 14th & 15th
If you are in the UK or can get to the UK, you don’t want to miss this event!
Photo Oxford Festival Celebrates 2023 Theme: The Hidden Power of the Archive
Lomography Homes-Sweet-Home
Instead of three this month, I’m bringing it down to one :)
Mr. K aka Nieuwhollands - visit his Lomography home here.
I mean, look at those color tones! Beautiful.
Jean has been a big support of the channel pretty much since the beginning but also he is a great photographer and I always love seeing his images on my feed.
He very kindly sent me a bunch of cool cameras to test out, which pretty much maxxed out the amount of storage space I have for cameras. The Eclectachrome donation center is at full capacity at the moment. But perhaps if I expand my IKEA shelving unit in the future, I can accept more as a few people have so kindly offered recently.
Most of the recent work on Lomography is full of natural scenes but J also has a street photography account if this genre floats your boat. Check out it here.
Film Adventures
Last we spoke on film adventures, I was in Seville surviving through the record high temperatures.
Today, I am sitting in a comfortably cool and sunny Welsh spring-near summer climate. It’s good to be home!
I shared a few reflections on traveling in my most recent subscriber post so if you’d like to support my writing and youtubing, you can upgrade here, read those reflections and other things from eclectachrome’s inner sanctum, and join other folks that help me keep the lights on:
Waiting for film is a practice in patience.
In the three weeks away, I accumulated 14 rolls of shot film. That’s not as many as I had planned though! When packing my bag, there were 30 rolls that made it in to my lead lined protective DOMKE film pouch.
(which you can find on amazon here, and this is an affiliate link. I’m testing out an affiliate account with amazon, so if you want to support the channel but not pay any extra, this is a good way to do it with your amazon shopping! I will never link anything I don’t wholeheartedly recommend)
Despite not shooting as many as planned, 14 rolls of film is still 14 rolls of film and the developing costs at a lab can add up. Especially since there was one roll of ECN-2 and one E6 which are slighly more expensive to process.
SO, I thought it was time to invest a little in my C41 home developing set-up…
After dropping the ECN-2 and E6 rolls off at Carmencita Film Lab in Valencia for a GRAND total of $60 for developing and scanning two rolls of film plus shipping back to the UK, I thought I’m going to need to save a bit somewhere else now.
But I’m happy to support Carmencita and their scans are top grade. So it is a treat. Saying that though, I’ve never been happier than with my scans from Analogue Wonderlab recently.
Anyways, I bought one of these…
On sale, my max budget for one of these was $50 and I managed to find this one for that. $100 was always a bit too much for me for this and that’s around the cost of the Cinestill version.
A Bellini C41 kit has also been sitting in my shelf for about a year because without temperature control it became very fidly to process color film and I never accumulated enough at once to be able to use the chemistry before it went off.
But now I am now set up for future processing so in the long-term, that’s more cost savings.
Let’s see though, because this could be a disaster…
I will update you how it went in the NEXT monthly newsletter!
I received my film back from Carmencita Lab just before this newsletter was planned to go out so I had to drop a few images in! These are the ones you have been seeing so far.
This E6 roll was expired Fujifilm Velvia and you can tell it’s expired in the images since the highlights have a yellow cast to them. I also overexposed this roll one stop but I think for the next one it will look better at box speed.
A pretty cool experience overall! I’m a huge fan of the black frames Carmencita left in when scanning, which is an option when ordering from them.
The ECN-2 roll was a test of the new Reflx 250D offering and it came out pretty darn perfect. I am absolutely drooling over the scans! (see an example below)
Look forward to a Youtube video VERY soon on this film! I took it to a day on the golf course with Mike and I can’t wait to share more of the results with you. :)
On Youtube
This video did quite well compared to the previous two! Maybe it’s the thumbail? Maybe it’s the topic? the music? If you watched it, let me know if you enjoyed it and why in the comments below!
It’s heavy on the American (New England historical small coastal town) vibes.
I also released these videos since last we spoke:
Reading Inspirations
It’s refreshing to step out of the photography ring for a moment and take in something completely different. Learn about something different, practice something else, be inspired in other areas of life. I’m finding the more I look in other interests, the more I’m inspired in my photography and the more energized I feel.
So my reading recommendation this month is a little different:
See this beautiful illustrated essay from Candace Rose Rardon which I discovered by way of Mike Sowden who writes Everything Is Amazing…which is also amazing.
Substack is jam-packed with beautiful writings like these and I’m curious, as a reader of this substack, how much do you explore the platform?
Signing Off
That’s all for today folks!
If you are here at the end, I want to thank you for your support and being extra special.
See you next time :)
Molly
Just getting into substack. Everyone I follow I heard about somewhere else like YouTube or Instagram. Enjoy hearing about your adventures.