Charlotte Makes Photos

  • Sliding Past The Year’s Second DNF 📖

    You know those times when you purchase a new book and, since the premise sounded interesting and the reviews generally positive, you were excited about it, but when you sit down to read it, …well, you don’t feel the same way as the blurbed?

    👋🏻 *waves* hi there!

    That was me on Tuesday morning.

    On Monday, I began reading a book I had recently acquired, largely on the strength of a review by a respectable Canadian author and supported by a story about the publishing industry in this country. It turns out that in the same way Canadians share an “internationally-remarkable taste” for re-runs of Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon, Canadians also share a remarkable taste for gay romance novels with a hockey theme.

    In both cases, it can make it a challenge for both the supply and demand for alternatives to find one another. So moved by the review and the cri de cœur of Canadian authors whose truck-and-trade has fewer sticks and pucks,1 I quickly moved on to my favourite local book store and picked myself up a copy.

    Unfortunately, what began as just not being quickly hooked,2 I found myself putting it down and scrolling my phone instead, reading over the same sentence over again, and just staring at the page not reading. By the half-way mark, I made it official: my second DNF of the year.

    Which also meant that I needed a new book. Fortunately, that very morning, while scrolling Instagram, I saw that one of my favourite authors — Emily Austin — had shared and recommended You’ll Love it Here by Natalie Sue, which sounded like just the right book for my next.3

    I now had a specific mission for my walk on Tuesday: I would meander a little in the sunshine (sunscreened, of course 👋🏻 hi Mom!) and stop in at Octopus Books in The Glebe to get myself a copy. Aside from being soaked in sunscreen, the sun also meant that I would continue to draw down on my slide film supplies.

    Sunny days and slide film: a real delight.

    Camera
    Lens
    Film
    Developer
    Time & Temp.
    Scanner
    Location
    Date(s)
    Filing

    Nikkormat EL
    Nikon Nikkor-H Auto 85mm f/1.8
    Kodak Ektachrome E100
    Unicolor Rapid E6
    11m at 38°C [1st dev & colour dev cycles]
    Plustek 8200i / SilverFast 9 / Apple Photos
    Ottawa, Ontario
    August 11, 2026
    Series 7, Roll 137

    1. Most of the fiction I read — really, nearly all of the fiction I read — is gay (often very gay), but doesn’t involve men and I don’t even think something more fitting, like softball-related lesbian romance, would move the needle for me. ↩︎
    2. Not all books are going to hook me immediately, but there is often a point in the first half where things just snap into place and I am invested. With this book, since it had no real narrative arc, plot, or even really named characters. It seemed as if the author were trying to write flash or microfiction into a single space and their goal was mostly cute little lines and bon mots in the realm of a single theme. I appreciated the point they were trying to make (the importance of human connection in an increasingly atomized world), but I don’t believe that the final product was well-baked. ↩︎
    3. I am about half way through it and I am really enjoying the story. ↩︎

  • A Truther is Born

    I think I’ve become a “Fuji Truther”.1

    I didn’t mean to, but I think I have.

    And just what is the dark and disturbing — sinister — truth that I’ve decided that I am buying into?

    I think that, at least in some cases, Fuji hasn’t been actually been manufacturing limited quantities of slide film in the last while.

    They’re just Disney-Vaulting stocks they manufactured long ago and keep in some deep freeze facility in Japan. And that early every Spring, an alarm goes off, and they allot two or three junior staff from their much-preferred Instax division2 to this mysterious deep freeze where they fire up 35-year-old hamster-powered machinery to spool up a small number of rolls, stamp them with a new best before date and send them out into the world.

    …where sad and desperate slide film girlies like myself pay a pretty penny for each and every roll.

    So why am I a truther?

    What has pulled the scales from my eyes?

    I have had the most rotten of luck with Velvia 100.

    With the exception of two 35mm rolls last year, I have had absolutely no roll of the stuff come back without dramatic colour shifts in the last several years. Whether it be 120, 35mm, processed by a lab, or by myself, they’ve all been a green mess that have required more of my very limited colour-correction skills than any slide film ought to.

    Fortunately, this green-cyan roll is from last year’s sad girl purchase and I didn’t bother with Velvia 100 this year, instead preferring Provia 100F.3

    At best, with today’s stocks, I think that my lesson is use it or lose it. There is no good reason to save it since the countdown clock has already been running (albeit slowly) for some time.

    Camera
    Lens
    Film
    Developer
    Time & Temp.
    Scanner
    Location
    Date(s)
    Filing

    Nikkormat EL
    Nikon Nikkor-H Auto 50mm f/2
    Fuji Velvia 100
    Unicolor Rapid E6
    11m at 38°C [1st dev & colour dev cycles]
    Plustek 8200i / SilverFast 9 / Apple Photos
    Ottawa, Ontario
    August 9, 2026
    Series 7, Roll 135

    1. I shouldn’t have to say so directly, but this is very tongue-in-cheek. I do think that many film companies play fast-and-loose with best-before dates and that, at least in some cases, Fuji – who is the most cryptic and cagey of manufacturers – would prefer to stretch things and avoid assigning more losses to their film division than they would have to, but also avoid getting into messy cross-subsidy shenanigans. Especially where it’s very clear that their dedication to film is …flimsy at best. ↩︎
    2. They’d never send anyone from their passion division: the people who design the film simulation filters for digital cameras. Why bother with the real thing when you don’t have to, right? ↩︎
    3. I’ve always liked Provia better anyway. I developed one of the three rolls of Provia I purchased this year yesterday and it turned out beautifully. ↩︎

  • Giving Ilford Delta A Lil’ Tug

    In answering the question of whether you’d like your photos with less apparent grain or to be developed quickly, Kodak’s Mic(rodol)-X was firmly positioned on the “I have time for anything except for visible grain” side of the house. As the developer of choice for long-since-discontinued films like Panatomic-X and Technical Pan, especially if enlarging from 35mm to 16×20 was the goal, it’s no surprise that once those films disappeared, so too did Kodak’s desire to make Microdol-X and it was discontinued.

    After reading Alex Luyckx’s review of LegacyPro’s sale of it as “Mic-X” a couple of years ago, I became curious and purchased a pouch of the powdered developer, mixed it up, and began using it. While I really liked the results I got with it (quite traditional and smooth midtones), the development times can be somewhat punitive at 15-30 minutes1 on many of the films I like to use. I quickly reassessed whether or not it was worth it to me.2

    As my supply of the developer was dwindling, I noticed that a few films have reasonable 1+1 times in Mic-X, including Fomapan 100 and Fomapan 200, which I use quite frequently. Especially 200. After seeing the results for the first time in December 2024, Mic-X quickly became my favourite developer for those two films and are the main reason I purchase Mic-X at all.

    More recently, I was searching for other films that have a 1+1 time for Mic-X and found that Ilford Delta 400 does, so long as you overexpose and use the developer to pull. The Massive Dev Chart has times for EI200 (1-stop pull: 14½ minutes at 20°C) and EI320 (⅓-stop pull: 16½ minutes at 20°C), and with six rolls in the fridge, I decided that I would perform a little experiment and expose one roll of each.

    The gallery above contains those photos for which I metered at 200 (a 1-stop pull), and…

    Camera
    Lens
    Film
    Developer
    Time & Temp.
    Scanner
    Location
    Date(s)
    Filing

    Nikkormat EL
    Nikon Nikkor-H Auto 28mm f/3.5
    Ilford Delta 400 (EI200)
    LegacyPro Mic-X (1+1)
    10m30s at 24°C
    Plustek 8200i / SilverFast 9 / Apple Photos
    Ottawa, Ontario
    August 12, 2026
    Series 7, Roll 138

    the gallery below contains those photos for which I metered at 320 (a ⅓-stop pull).

    Since I did not set it up as a more formal experiment, but it was a punitively cloudy day, the maximum benefits to pulling a film aren’t readily apparent (keeping a sense of order, balance, and detail in very bright sun), so now I am curious about the results I would get by developing HP5 metered at 50 (a 3-stop pull) in Mic-X 1+1.

    I will leave that one for later ☺️

    Camera
    Lens
    Film
    Developer
    Time & Temp.
    Scanner
    Location
    Date(s)
    Filing

    Nikkormat EL
    Nikon Nikkor-H Auto 28mm f/3.5
    Ilford Delta 400 (EI320)
    LegacyPro Mic-X (1+1)
    12m at 24°C
    Plustek 8200i / SilverFast 9 / Apple Photos
    Ottawa, Ontario
    August 12, 2026
    Series 7, Roll 139

    1. At one-shot dilutions, the most common of which is 1+3. Stock solution would reduce times and maximize grain-smoothing, but if there’s one thing I have a hard time managing it’s babysitting most developer stock solutions. I like to know what I’m using is at the appropriate strength and my little brain neither manages at calculating an appropriate time to add nor making replenisher solutions. I realize this places me in the unskilled amateur camp, which is fair. I’m an Excel-Toucher for His Majesty the King in Right of Canada and not a working photographer or artist. ↩︎
    2. The answer was “no” at the time. Between having to stand at the sink for upwards of 40 minutes to develop a roll and losing ⅓ to ⅔ of effective film speed (unless I remembered to overexpose and use the development to pull), it was a case of “beautiful, but at what cost???” ↩︎

  • A Last-Minute Substitution

    When I woke up on Sunday morning, the sun was out and the birds were chirping. At least, I assume they were. We had the windows closed and the air conditioner on because it had been quite warm; the heat continuing to accumulate into the walls of our concrete building and radiating it back at us.

    …and by the time I had finished my shower and (air dry), the clouds had rolled in. Looking westward from our kitchen window, I saw nothing but a shelf of grey. Hardly the conditions for slide film, which I had helpfully informed my Bluesky pals that I’d be using that morning.

    It’s just as well that I didn’t at that point, however. Sunday morning was just a little grocery run — a little local loop — in which we took one of our more usual paths to the grocery store, so it might have been a little humdrum.

    Two things, however:

    1. After more than a year since I last had, I mixed up a gallon batch of Mic-X. As my preferred developer for Fomapan 100 and 200, with numerous rolls of it in the fridge, it was a good choice.
    2. The Sunday Farmers’ Market was open just off Elgin Street that morning. While it’s a small one, the nice people from ONEigiri or Two had their table there, so that was lunch sorted for Kathleen and I!

    I like to think that having delicious onigiri for lunch made the difference, but the sun came out after lunch and I was able to take a second walk (after — you guessed it — a post sitz bath air dry) with a roll of Velvia 100 through Sandy Hill.

    Along with a roll of Ektachrome I exposed on Tuesday, I will be developing it today!

    Camera
    Lens
    Film
    Developer
    Time & Temp.
    Scanner
    Location
    Date(s)
    Filing

    Nikkormat EL
    Nikon Nikkor-S Auto 55mm f/1.2
    Arista EDU Ultra 200 [Fomapan 200] (EI125)
    LegacyPro Mic-X (1+1)
    6m20s at 23.5°C
    Plustek 8200i / SilverFast 9 / Apple Photos
    Ottawa, Ontario
    August 9, 2026
    Series 7, Roll 134

  • Seeking Confirmation; Seeking Elimination

    One thing I wanted to do after Saturday’s development disappointment was to confirm that my D-96 wasn’t the culprit. There was no reason it should have been: it was recently mixed and I had only used it to develop three other rolls at the time (it’s good for 12).

    Like a fictional detective — a sort of Minolta Jane Marple or Fuji Jessica Fletcher — I needed to pursue and eliminate other possibilities. On Monday morning, I loaded a short 12-frame roll of Ilford FP4+ to expose while I was out for groceries. As if it could be any other way, the negatives came out beautifully, confirming that, whatever the problems with the development of the Lomo Berlin was, it was not related to the chemistry itself.

    I have one more roll of Berlin on hand and while I could just develop it for 8 or 9 minutes in D-96 and hope for the best, I may just use a developer with an official time, like HC-110.

    Camera
    Lens
    Film
    Developer
    Time & Temp.
    Scanner
    Location
    Date(s)
    Filing

    Minolta XG-1
    Minolta MD Rokkor-X 50mm f/1.7
    Ilford FP4+
    Flic Film Black and White Cine Developer (D-96)
    5m20s at 25.5°C
    Plustek 8200i / SilverFast 9 / Apple Photos
    Ottawa, Ontario
    August 10, 2026
    Series 7, Roll 136

  • Charlotte Goes Off Script

    Friday and Saturday called for clouds and that is by-and-large what we received. Although I am very much in a mood for slide film, it ends up looking like a sad blue mess on overcast days, so I decided that I would give some Lomography Berlin a try.

    As is the case with all of Lomography’s films, they’re not manufacturing them, but rather purchasing (or contracting bulk amounts of slightly customized) existing film and packaging them to make them more accessible and, in many cases, with a more effective branding. Like most companies who engage in this practice, they aren’t entirely forthcoming as to what the film “actually” is.

    One of my favourite films is ORWO UN54, a traditional cinema film manufactured in Germany by Fimotec using the much older ORWO brand. After an unsuccessful foray into selling film directly to consumers, the ORWO brand is likely dormant once again, but Lomography has long sold this film as Lomography Potsdam Kino. This is how I get it in 120 format. UN54/Potsdam just hits all the right notes for me, especially when developed in D-96, Kodak’s standard black-and-white developer for cinema film.

    As part of a recent order I made with Lomography (who ships a selection of bestsellers from Canada now), I requested a few rolls of Berlin, its 400 ISO sister. It was once a favourite of Kathleen’s, but when she set making photos aside, we didn’t really purchase any more of it. Berlin is either repackaged ORWO UN74+ or UN75. I’ve never really known the difference (or if there is even one), perhaps beyond some subtleties I’m just not tuned into.

    In any event, I really wanted to see what Berlin/UN75 does in D-96 and if I would have something a little like Eastman Double-X (which I also love). There was one problem though: the Massive Dev Chart app did not have any times listed for D-96 in any of the film’s names and ORWO’s processing data sheet (available in German), only mentions that D-96 is like another one of their developers and like UN54, which I didn’t find entirely helpful. …except that development of Potsdam/UN54 is 6 minutes at 20°C, which I have had consistent success with. I then looked around more, and found blog posts that indicate 6½ minutes (with nice enough results), and CineStill’s D96 developer lists a time of 7 minutes.

    Feeling like 6 minutes would have been a little short for a 400 ISO film, I had originally selected 6½ minutes in line with the blog, but then at the last minute chose 7 minutes as my benchmark, figuring a vendor would try these things out more than once and that the MDC lists 6¾ minutes for ORWO’s P400 (derived from UN75) at 21°C.

    As I usually do, I used the Massive Dev Chart app to adjust my time downward. In summer it is quite a bit warmer in my apartment, making all of my chemistries warmer too. In this case, my was 25°C, which brought the time down to 4 minutes and 40 seconds. This adjustment was also in line with how I process UN54/Potsdam, so I thought nothing of it.

    …until I pulled both rolls of Berlin out of the tank and found very very (very) thin negatives that had spent nowhere near enough time in the bath.

    The scans above and below represent the very best I was able to tease out of them in scanning and required that I engage in a little post-hoc “digital development”, in which I raised the black point significantly, raised contrast, raised highlights, and lowered shadows. So while in the game of “is it pictures?”, it was. But only just.

    Camera
    Lens
    Film
    Developer
    Time & Temp.
    Scanner
    Location
    Date(s)
    Filing

    Nikkormat EL
    Nikon Nikkor-N.C. Auto 24mm f/2.8
    Lomography Berlin Kino
    Flic Film Black and White Cine Developer (D-96)
    4m40s at 25°C
    Plustek 8200i / SilverFast 9 / Apple Photos
    Ottawa, Ontario
    August 7, 2026
    Series 7, Roll 132

    Charlotte and Kathleen at the Hot Wench Market

    August is really when the market and festival season sets in for Ottawa. And while they don’t always have a queer theme or vibe to them, it wouldn’t exactly be wrong to state that they’ve got a fairly queer (and often vegan) constituency. And I’m not just referring to Kathleen and I!

    On Saturday, we visited the Hot Wench Market, which is billed on its Instagram page as “the scrappy little ottawa market for magical humans to share our passions (while being hot) 🧙🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️”. It was not even a question that Kathleen and I were going to visit. Magical, fantasy, witchy, gothy, and all sorts of other local delights, we were bound to find all sorts of things.

    While the main goal was for Kathleen to find some thrifted items for her outfit for the Black Swan Ball in November (I can’t choose outfits that early, so I’m waiting for some October inspiration to hit), by the time we were done, we had no articles of clothing, but rather a bevy of crafty delights, like an intoxicatingly-delightful scented candle (it won’t be that long until we’re back in cozy movie-watching season), very cute stickers, notepads, jewelry, and a drink mat, which is like a large coaster. We also enjoyed some very nice vegan sandwiches for lunch – Kathleen, a “chick’n” pesto, and me, a “sala-me” and sauerkraut, and, well, when it’s Little Jo Berry’s, some treats followed us home too.

    Camera
    Lens
    Film
    Developer
    Time & Temp.
    Scanner
    Location
    Date(s)
    Filing

    Pentax K2
    SMC Pentax 50mm f/1.4
    Lomography Berlin Kino
    Flic Film Black and White Cine Developer (D-96)
    4m40s at 25°C
    Plustek 8200i / SilverFast 9 / Apple Photos
    Ottawa, Ontario
    August 8, 2026
    Series 7, Roll 133

  • Standard Summer Lessons

    Since the clouds rolled in on Thursday morning, I decided on a roll of Tri-X and the Canon for my little walk.

    …for which I decided on wearing my little wedge sandals. Like I did on Wednesday. Unfortunately, for one reason or another, it was on this walk that my feet decided they were unimpressed with that arrangement and I earned myself a pair of blisters. Back to sneakers for me!

    Camera
    Lens
    Film
    Developer
    Time & Temp.
    Scanner
    Location
    Date(s)
    Filing

    Canon EOS Kiss Lite
    Canon Lens EF 50mm f/1.8 STM
    Kodak Tri-X
    HC-110 Dilution E (1+47)
    5m7s at 25.5°C
    Plustek 8200i / SilverFast 9 / Apple Photos
    Ottawa, Ontario
    August 6, 2026
    Series 7, Roll 131

  • Creating Yesterday’s Feel Today

    It’s not all that often I have a specific plan what I’d like to make photos of and this past Wednesday was not exception. I just knew that the sun was out and I would like to keep the good times with slide film rolling while it was. Otherwise, I just like to make a few starter photos of something that looks interesting and somewhere down the line, I am bound to find something that I get fixated on.

    Well, usually.

    As luck would have it, one of my traditional standards — archival photos made by enthusiastic amateurs — came to mind as I was slowly walking around an extended (but still cautiously tight as I heal) loop around Centretown.

    Aside from some of the familiar vistas (i.e. photo four above, looking north up Bay from Cooper), the colour shift in the film, which expired in early 2022 made me think archival and it made me think of some sights that might have been of some interest in the 1970s or 1980s: towers rising, apartments that might be in need of a little sprucing up, or Victwardian rows recently renovated by young families choosing downtown instead of the suburban areas they were raised in.

    I think in this case I achieved what I was looking to. Between the expired film, the rendering of the Konica’s lens (assembled in 1956), and even my less-than-ideal compositions, I experienced the same sort of feel I would when reviewing a collection of slides for the first time in an archive when I pulled the strip of film from its reel.

    Camera
    Lens
    Film
    Developer
    Time & Temp.
    Scanner
    Location
    Date(s)
    Filing

    Konica Pearl III-MX
    Konishiroku Hexar 75mm f/3.5
    Kodak Ektachrome E100 (Exp. 2022/02)
    Unicolor Rapid E6
    11m0s at 38°C [1st Dev & Color Dev Cycles]
    Epson V600 / SilverFast 9 / Apple Photos
    Ottawa, Ontario
    August 5, 2026
    Series 7, Roll 130

  • A Rough Ride Down Carling

    After my second Ektachrome roll on Tuesday, I wasn’t quite finished. Later that afternoon, I had my weekly electrolysis appointment to attend and the clinic is in the Carlington area, across from the former Westgate Mall.

    Instead of using another roll of slide, in a sort of show of defiance after retiring my ME Super, I decided to dust off my K2, load a roll of FP4+, make the uninspired journey down to Catherine street where I would take the bus.

    The bus ride was itself eventful, but because I soon learned in a different way that where the utilitarian suspension of low-floor city buses meets the never-to-be-smooth Carling Avenue makes for an uncomfortable ride. In other words, my bed sore is mostly gone, but under those conditions, I might as well have been back in Montréal.

    All’s well that ends well though, and with a second appointment in a row, I’m now officially back in the swing of things for electrolysis. I have about one year left before I’m finished with the most vexing hair I have, so making new progress is important.

    Camera
    Lens
    Film
    Developer
    Time & Temp.
    Scanner
    Location
    Date(s)

    Filing

    Pentax K2
    SMC Pentax-M 50mm f/2
    Ilford FP4+
    Flic Film Black and White Cine (D-96)
    5m50 at 23.8°C
    Plustek 8200i / SilverFast 9 / Apple Photos
    Ottawa, Ontario
    August 4, 2026 (1-8)
    August 5, 2026 (9-12)
    Series 7, Roll 129

  • Slide Season (Part 2)

    In fact, the weather was so pretty on Tuesday, that I stopped to load another roll at the corner of Somerset and Kent so that I could continue. I was going to run my grocery errands at Hartman’s1 Massine’s but since I wanted to keep walking, I ended up instead stopping in at Farm Boy, the store I usually do my groceries at.

    Unsurprisingly, since it came out of the same pro pack, this roll also shows its age, taking on a bit of a blue cast that I’ve attempted to correct for a little.

    Camera
    Lens
    Film
    Developer
    Time & Temp.
    Scanner
    Location
    Date(s)
    Filing

    Mamiya C220
    Mamiya-Sekor 8cm f/2.8
    Kodak Ektachrome E100 (Exp. 2022/02)
    Unicolor Rapid E6
    11m0s at 38°C [1st Dev & Color Dev Cycles]
    Epson V600 / SilverFast 9 / Apple Photos
    Ottawa, Ontario
    August 4, 2026
    Series 7, Roll 128

    1. Poor Massine. He’s owned it for like 10 or more years now, and I can still only think of it as Hartman’s. ↩︎