02-03-26 - Site Spotlight Weekly
All changes and updates listed here are from Monday 23rd February 2026 - 1st March 2026!
Monday 23rd February 2026
First C-41 developing:
1.) Today was an interesting day. I developed Colour film or C-41 for the first time. As I said previously, I took some notes, or mainly I wrote the notes after developing because not much changes during the C-41 process. My articular chemicals are from the Cinestill Simplified kit. It's powder and only a 2 step process. You add the developer for 3.5 minutes then add the bleach & fix for an additional 8 minutes. Chemicals need to be 39 degrees celcius or else you'll get colour shifts. As of writing this, my film is still drying and so I haven't scanned it yet so I have yet to know if I did something wrong or not but fingers crossed everything went fine. Of course there are other steps involved such as a pre soak before adding the developer, and then after you’ve added the bleach & fix you do an additional wash followed by photo-flo which acts as a wetting agent and helps the film to dry without streaks and dry quicker. In my notes I explained how things actually went so I'll add those soon. 2.) I have started scanning my film. Once scanned, I'll go through them. Tuesday 24th February 2026
Photographing and editing:
1.) Today I was out but photographing but this time with my digital camera. I have been asked to take photos by a local charity. This is a big opportunity for me and I am happy that I was asked. I think today went well. Tomorrow I will go through them and make my usual edits. 2.) Once I got home I started editing the roll of Portra. I think I did a good job in developing snd I'll be happy to share them soon. I’m going to hold off on that until I collect some of my previous negatives from the lab. I’ll also need to finish off the roll of XP2 that is sitting in my Contax. Wednesday 25th February 2026
Photographing and editing:
1.) Today I spent some time editing and going through the digital images.2.) I went out in our garden and I finished off the roll of XP2 so I will get that developed soon! I’m also thinking of developing medium format but I am a bit worries that I will mess that up. I have a roll of Kodak Ektar 100 that I loaded into my Yashica except I haven’t started shooting it yet. I am wondering whether I should develop that roll myself or not because Ektar is expensive to mess up. The reason I am a bit worried is because loading medium format into a Patterson tank is a little bit different than regular 35mm. 3.) I received some film in the post today. A roll of Kodak Ektachrome 100 so another roll of Slide film except this time it’s for medium format. I will be saying this film for the summer and when it is sunnier. I am excited to see how it will turn out! Thursday 26th February 2026
No work done today:
1.) Today I had an appointment and so I didn’t do anything work wise. 2.) I am just wondering weather I should develop my roll of XP2 or if I should leave that until Saturday because I have some film to be picked up on Saturday but if I develop the film today then I won’t have as big of a workload although now that I'm saying this I could always leave it until tomorrow because I will have all day tomorrow. 3.) I have so exciting news. I finally got myself a customised email address. My new email address is “behindthelens@cdaviesstudio.com”. Now I have that I need to think about making myself some business cards. Friday 27th February 2026
Second C-41 Developing:
1.) Today I developed some more film. This time the roll of Ilford XP2 Super 400. It went smoother than last time however more mistakes were made. I won’t go into detail too much around what happened as I talked about that in my notes. I will of course share the notes in due course. For this roll I wrote a lot of notes around the shooting and they’re probably a bit unnecessary the amount I've wrote but I'm looking forward to sharing them. 2.) I have started creating some email campaigns along with an additional email to send newsletters when people subscribe to me. One of the newsletters will be the shutter thoughts blog. Talking of the blog, I haven’t actually written anything outside of SSW for quite a while. I’m thinking maybe having a developing blog where I post notes and talk about my experience however I am adding those notes to their respective pages anyway so I'm not sure if I really need a secondary place to talk about them. I’ll have a think and see what I think. I mean it would be kind of nice to have a dedicated place to talk about developing outside of posting the finished images but then my set could feel all over the place. Anyway like I said, I'll have a think. 3.) I have since started scanning in the film. This time I actually used my common sense and I waited for the film to dry. Once scanned I will go through them and then I can finalise my notes. Tomorrow I will be picking up a roll of film from the lab and so I can start scanning that in either tomorrow or on Sunday. 4.) I want to shoot with my TLR again but I think I've kind of screwed myself because it’s loaded with Ektar and the weather isn’t the best lol. I could use a tripod but I really want a sunny day so I might wait until til the weather has cleared up a bit. I don’t really like hooting Colour film when it’s cold or grey out. Saturday 28th February 2026
Went out photographing:
1.) Today I was out. I picked up a roll of film from the lab and then we went to Dawlish where I shot some film. I used my Yashica Mat 124G and shoot a roll of Kodak Ektar 100. I will be saving that film to develop myself. 2.) Once I got home I started scanning the film. Sunday 1st March 2026
Third C-41 Developing:
1.) Today I developed some more film. This would be my third time developing Colour Film and my first time developing Medium Format Film. Needless to say things went wrong. The film is still drying at the moment.2.) After it was dry I scanned it into the computer and I went through them and made some edits. I will leave the dust removal for tomorrow. Well that’s all for now. Thank you!
