As it’s a public holiday here in the UK on Monday (Spring Bank Holiday or, as it used to be known when I was a kid, Whitsuntide) I decided to extend the weekend futher and book today off work as well. As my wife is currently nursing an injury, my morning consisted of doing the weekly grocery shop and then, when I got home, helping with the housework. Not quite what I’d hoped for when I booked the day’s leave. Still, being positive, at least those chores are now done and I can spend the next three days doing mostly what I please.
The trip to the supermarket was a little stressful – while I’ve been in the local Sainsbury’s store on several occasions since the lockdown and social-distancing measures were enforced, this was my first trip to Morrison’s. Perhaps because the aisles are less spacious in Morrison’s, and perhaps because they were allowing more shoppers in at a time, the place felt crowded – certainly in comparison with my experiences at Sainsbury’s. There was little hope of maintaining a constant two-metre distance anywhere other than the queue for the checkouts (or the queue to get in). A good number of people didn’t seem to care anyway and I caught myself holding my breath on more than one occasion in some sort of futile attempt to ward off viruses! In the end, a task that takes my wife an hour (even under current conditions) took me almost two, and I was duly chided for it when I got home.
After unpacking the shopping, it was onto the housework – although there wasn’t too much to be done, thankfully. Once complete, I had some lunch and then undertook a couple of photography chores. I have a roll of HP5+ that needs to be developed, so I loaded that into the tank ready to dev it tomorrow. All went well getting it onto the spiral, but the bit of tape that holds the film to the backing paper evaded my fingers and stuck itself to the film. Whether this was on a section of exposed emulsion, I’m not sure, but I’m bracing myself for at least one knackered negative. After this, I scanned a roll of Fomapan 100 that I developed last weekend. This is the first roll of Foma that I’ve home devved in the Ilfotol DD-X so I was curious as to the results, and I’m pleased to see that they look good. I like Fomapan 100 and I’m glad the DD-X does it justice. It’ll be a while before any of those see the light of the blog though as I’ve got a bunch of other stuff I’ve already scanned but not yet published.
Today’s photo is another shot from the expired roll of Lloyds Pharmacy 200 shot over Easter. It’s another abstract, this time of a ridged golden vase that holds a bunch of artificial flowers.
Nikon F80, Sigma 105mm f/2.8 OS HSM & Lloyds Pharmacy 200 (expired 2008).
Taken on 11 April 2020
Steel City Snapper photography 