127 Day July 2022

Zeiss Ikon Ikonta 520/18 with Rollei Superpan

Although I've not devoted much time to this blog of late, I didn't want to miss 127 Day earlier this week. This occurred towards the end of a spell of hot humid weather, with a dip to slightly more comfortable temperatures and humidity, a lull before the forecasted extreme heat in a few days' time. Taking some photographs on a walk in the early evening, it was still very warm, and the lighting had a peculiar heavy overcast quality (I was also recovering from a second Covid-19 infection, which, with the weather, gave a slightly soporific feel to the evening, and possibly as a result I wasn't really giving that much sufficient attention to subject matter and composition). I used the reliable Baby Ikonta, and a roll of cut-down Rollei Superpan 200, a film I've used a few times before, and had tested a fair bit in Rodinal to get a workable time/dilution; however, the roll of film I shot on 127 Day I developed with Kodak HC-110, a new developer for me, and so I went with the Massive Dev Chart's recommended time/dilution. Somehow, to me at least (and it may just be my own associated memory), the resulting negatives convey the airless quality of the day, with glimpses of the grass looking bleached by the sun, the foliage of the trees beginning to get the dusty dark tonality of high summer, possibly in part thanks to the extended red sensitivity of Rollei Superpan. Possibly most of the images might also have benefited from a yellow filter too, although I don't have any filters which fit the Baby Ikonta's lens: the constraints and conditions of exposing just a single roll on the day didn't really allow for any of these considerations.