A week ago, it was the first “World Half-Frame Day.” I had organised a walk in Leeds, along with all the other walks available on the Photowalk.me website. A few people turned up, luckily I knew them all, and they were all friends. That made it a delightful, relaxed day.

I have a few half-frame cameras, but I haven’t used the Olympus FT for a while. So, I decided to use that camera for this inaugural day. Recently, I have tried the Pentax 17, and the owner was one of the people who joined me on this walk. That meant I could return it before I got too attached to it. I brought a spare camera, the Kodak H35n, in case anyone turned up without the half format. Not that I would have minded, a film walk is a film walk.

We met in the Leeds Market food area and spent quite some time eating, drinking, and simply chatting about cameras. But it was a photowalk after all, so we made our move, first heading to Fred Aldous to check out their film offerings. Then we wandered around the city. Having a small group meant we could decide on a route based on our interests. One person wanted to return to a previous location where a shot didn’t quite come out, and another wanted to visit the last day of the Miffy exhibition. I wanted to take my friends to a shop I liked, Masato Jones. We could and did do them all.

I had loaded my camera with a roll of Ilford Pan 50, which I intended to push process to at least 100asa depending on the light conditions. When on photowalks, I tend to enjoy the walk and the company and forget about any photo style or plan. This is especially true when I am with friends. Afterwards, I always wish I had thought a bit more about what I am actually doing. This was especially true when I developed this roll. The results are nice, but they didn’t really show off the half-frame format.

I read this blog recently and love the shots Steve got with his Pentax 17. The triptychs are especially eye-catching. I am going to have another walk and try this style myself.

There are lots of ‘meet the photographer’ on the World Half-Frame website, like this one on Monika Danos, who makes multi-frame sets of images. The home for this day is a great resource for learning about different ways to use half-frame creatively.

But for this walk, I mainly did a point-and-shoot affair. Not everything was that easy, though. After I developed the film, I realised my fix was exhausted. A few of the images looked like they had solarisation, but I quite liked it. In the end, I decided not to refix them.

Here are my results:

The lady playing the ‘viola’, I highlighted that as he was very particular that I got the right instrument name, left me in charge of her pitch for a while. She needed a comfort break, and apparently, I looked very trustworthy. It was quite amusing, I sang a little…but made no money.

I will definitely take part in the next Half-Frame Day, but I will have a plan or look out for more triptych opportunities.