A friend of mine gave me a couple of rolls of Mr Negative 35mm film. We were on a cheeky little trip to Cambridge while she was home from Australia. She has been working there over the past year, so myself and another friend took the chance to spend a few days together before she goes back. She had a choice of 4 films for us both to choose from.

The first I chose was a roll of Silver Screen Negative with Godzilla on the box. I picked that one purely because I had recently been to see Minus One which I loved. The film was an ECN2 film with the remjet layer still on it. It was perfect for the beautiful weather we experienced on the trip. I had taken my favourite camera and lens combination, the Contax 137 MA and an f1.4 lens. Unfortunately, the mirror had slipped on the camera and it was hitting the back of the lens, not completing the cycle. BUT, I knew a fix that I wanted to try and I was with two women with lovely long hair. I was sure one of them would have brought a hair-dryer. I have short hair and don’t own one, so this was a perfect opportunity to try the fix. Basically, you used the hair-dryer to heat up the glue behind the mirror and you just push it back into place. It worked like a charm and I had my favourite camera back in working order. Cheapest fix ever.

We trudled around a few places, but the thatched row of houses is Wendens Ambo, a lovely name for a lovely little Chocolate box village. The colours of the film were lovely, but there was an issue with my roll on processing. The damn remjet just wouldn’t come off properly. The film had probably been subject to high heat or humidity and it might have affected it.

Here are some of the results.

That was disappointing, it looked like Godzilla had taken bites out of the film. I used Snapseed to get rid of some of the bites, here are those fixed ones…

Not perfect but better.

The second film I chose was called ‘Black Market’. I wanted an opposite from the first one, I also suspected this was actually Kodak Double XX, but I don’t know that for sure, I developed it as such and it worked though.

I loaded this into a camera given to me by the other travelling partner, a Canon A1. It was a nice combination, a film from one friend and the camera from the other.

I like the sequence of three of my friend, they show her personality perfectly, slightly hangry as she hasn’t had breakfast, then laughing at something I have said or done. I am so lucky to have these two and other friends in my life.

I didn’t quite finish this film on the too short trip and transfered it to the Kodak H35N, which is a half-frame camera. As the weather was still lovely, I decided to take myself off for a trek at Beaklow in the Peak District. Another friend had mentioned a B29 wreck site and was surprised I hadn’t visited it on my wanders. So I decided today was the day I did. Check out the site I linked to just now, their photos are wonderful.

The hike to the wreck wasn’t so bad, but it was the longest hike I had done for a while due to knee damaged. I was so please with myself that I decided to go even further. Eventually, I hiked up and down the area for about 10km. I was absolutely shattered by the time I got back to my car.

Here are some of the results from the H35N.

It was a very peaceful site when I was there, just a couple of other people were around. As I left the area, lots more people were heading up.

I loved this film and would use it again. The silver screen wasn’t the best experience for me, but that is just my experience, there are lots of examples out there with better results.