It’s been a while since I got to do a film of the month challenge put on by the team at the Embrace the Grain Podcast, mainly because some of the more recent ones have focused on colour films. And I’m not often one to jump on colour films. For a couple of reasons, first being I don’t like scanning colour film, and second, it’s difficult to get processed on time as I don’t keep colour chemicals at home. So when January’s film was announced as being Japan Camera Hunter Streetpan 400, I jumped, and I had a roll stashed away.
I took the film out to one of my favourite historical villages, Elora, Ontario. Thankfully it snowed earlier in the week, and despite being a little chilly, the day proved a bright and sunny one, a day made for Streetpan, which loves light. I loaded the film into my trusty Nikon F5 with the heavy 28-70/2.8D lens mounted and left the filters at home. I wanted to get the full experience of JCH and expose the film one-stop over at ASA-200. For development, I went with a new developer in my chemistry kit, Flic Film’s Black/White & Green. B/W & Green is a developer you’ve seen a bit more on my Flickr stream and will be appearing in an upcoming developer preview and some other reviews.
Despite having visited Elora on a number of occasions, I can always find new things to photograph and taking different cameras, lenses, and film stocks each time only makes things more fun. I parked up by the old drill hall (now an LCBO). I took to wandering along the main street up to the Roman Catholic Parish before swinging back down through the side streets and out along the gorge before popping back out and walking out past the old mill along the Pedestrian bridge. Not my usual route, but sometimes you have to switch it up a little to see something new or an angle you had not seen before.
I’ve been a longtime fan of Streetpan, but it’s always produced thin but scannable negatives. Shooting it at ASA-200 made far better negatives right from the tank and retained that crunchy contrast, iconic Streetpan. If I did this again, I think I’d go with a dilute mix of Ilfotec HC. Suppose you want to know what the film of the month for February is, join the Embrace the Grain Podcast group over on Facebook. In that case, it’s one of three Canadian Film Podcasts that is a part of the Film Podcaster’s Union Local 120mm and fronted by Sherry and Jake, two wonderful folk and photographers. Also, if you post your work on Instagram, make sure to use the tag #embracethegrainpodcast for a chance to be featured and share some love. If you want to see more of my past involvement with the ETG Film-Of-The-Month and see the rest of my images from Elora, you can visit the album over on Flickr.