On a recent walk around Princeton University, I exposed an expired Kodak Portra 400 BW 35mm film cartridge.
Kodak Professional Portra 400BW was a multi-purpose chromogenic black and white negative film designed to be processed in standard C-41 chemistry alongside rolls of colour negative film and printed on standard colour paper. It was developed like a colour-negative film in the C-41 process and delivered monochrome images like a black-and-white film. The film was intended for exposure with daylight, electronic flash, and artificial illumination.
Kodak Professional Portra 400BWW was a versatile film for 35mm and medium format cameras. It was made with a Kodak T-Grain emulsion and had a wide exposure latitude. Production of the Kodak Portra 400BW was discontinued and replaced with Kodak Professional BW400CN, which was also discontinued. This film incorporated Kodak T-GRAIN® emulsions, which provided excellent grain and sharpness at a relatively high speed. This film was used for portrait and wedding applications and many commercial applications.
I awoke on Monday morning feeling out of sorts. Not physically but emotionally. I was conflicted about a difficult decision I had to make. I needed to clear my head. It was Presidents Day's federal banking holiday, so I had the day off. After breakfast, I grabbed my Minolta X-700, MD W.Rokkor-X 28mm F2.8 lens and loaded an expired roll of Kodak Professional Portra 400BWW from the box of expired 35mm film that my friend had sent me. I mounted the setup to my Manfrotto tripod. It was an overcast morning, and I wanted to ensure I could expose frames at a lower shutter speed if needed. I tried to avoid motion blur.
As I walked around the Princeton University campus, I became more relaxed. The air was cool, but I was comfortable. It was still early, and the campus was coming alive. I focused on bicycles. They are easy to find on campus. I walked west of Olden Street near the School of Engineering and Applied Science on Shapiro Walk. Shapiro Walk took me to the Fountain of Freedom.
I exposed several frames to photograph the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, formerly the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Foreign Policy magazine ranks the Princeton School second in the world for international relations at the undergraduate level behind Harvard University and fourth at the graduate level, behind the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University, and Johns Hopkins University.
I exposed this 35mm roll of Kodak Portra 400BW at box speed. The scans exhibit a lot of chunky film grain. I think this is because I did not expose the film correctly. I had not yet learned about the "overexpose by one stop for each decade the film has expired" rule. I should have exposed the film at ISO 50, thereby overexposing each frame to adjust for the age of the film.
The film cartridge was developed at Boutique Photo Lab and scanned on my Epson Perfection V600 with VueScan 9. I made some minor cropping and perspective adjustments in Adobe Lightroom.
It was one of those weekends when I didn’t know what to write. I think it’s because I had something preying on my mind related to my work. Nothing terrible, just something I needed to decide that week that I’m not sure I’m fully prepared for. Usually, I get stressed because I already know what I need to choose, and I hope everything will go just fine, but that doesn’t stop my brain from flipping into anxiety mode. I was focusing on this one thing which meant I did not spend time thinking about a bunch of other things I needed to do (vacation planning), leading to cumulative general anxiety.
The photograph was captured during my foggy day walk around downtown Princeton. After I walked on Witherspoon Street, I circled back around to Spring Street. I was cold, the fog cleared, and I wanted to go home. I exposed a few frames outside Kopp’s Cycles, which thankfully, were the last unexposed frames on the cartridge.
The fog and dim light seemed like a good day to use Kosmo Foto Agent Shadow.
A few weeks ago I completed a virtual workshp on the Zone System, led by photographer Ossian Lindholm. It's part of my efforts to nreak out of my pandmeic rut.
Ansel Adams developed the Zone System, a technique for translating perceived light into specific densities to allow better control over finished photographs. Though he lived well before the time of megapixels and monitors I think he would have embraced the creative possibilities of the digital age.
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