On 5 January 2021 the United Kingdom government announced a new lockdown in advance of what it called the “hardest weeks”. A new more infectious variant of Covid-19, surging cases and rising patient numbers threatened to overwhelm the National Health Service. People were asked to “stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives” but were still allowed to travel up to about five miles for daily exercise. I went for a walk from my home every day and carried my camera on most of these daily walks. These photographs were taken during this period.
These photographs represent a new departure for me. In December 2020 I started pushing Ilford HP5 Plus to ISO 1600 rather than shooting at the box speed of ISO 400. To support this I have started using Ilford Microphen as a developer. The reason for making the change is so that I could continue to take photographs inside and out during the darker winter months.
As a result, these photos show a greater contrast and more noticeable grain than those taken at ISO 400 and developed in Rodinal. I like the look and consider it an improvement. I’d be tempted to continue with this into the summer, but do like shooting with the aperture wide open and would run into issues with the maximum 1/500 sec shutter speed on the Bronica.
