Understanding Processes (by doing it)

I consider myself lucky—I get to share my life with someone truly wonderful (you can catch a glimpse of her in this new series, Puglia Pt.1, and in the upcoming ones). For Christmas, she gave me my first real analog camera: a beautiful Nikon FE2.

So I took advantage of our trip to Japan to shoot my very first rolls of film and try out different types of color stocks. I have to admit—I really enjoyed the experience.
The issue is, I live in Switzerland, and here, places where you can still get film developed are rare… and expensive. When we got back, a bit frustrated, I put the Nikon back on the shelf and found myself thinking nostalgically about a time when film development was far more common and accessible.

And being who I am, my next question was: “How do you even develop a film? Maybe I could just do it myself.”
That led me down a YouTube rabbit hole of tutorials on how to develop color and black-and-white film, and it quickly seemed like something entirely doable.
So I ordered a black-and-white development kit, a few rolls of film, and waited eagerly for my next vacation to pack the Nikon again.

And here are the results: Puglia Pt.1, Pt.2, and Pt.3.
Of course, nothing went perfectly—there’s still a long way to go. There were processing mistakes, spots, scratches, dust… but I have to say, I also ended up with a few photos I really love.
Naturally, the next step was figuring out how to scan and process the negatives (I'll spare you the details), and in the end, the whole thing probably cost me more than just sending my three rolls to a lab.

But… there’s nothing more satisfying to me than understanding how things work, and being able to carry out a creative process from A to Y (yes, there's still the matter of printing… but I do have my limits).
A nice bonus: I’ve always loved black and white photography, and now I have the perfect excuse to shoot more of it on a regular basis.

Puglia 25 | Pt.1 – Ilford FP4+: a few shots around our seaside house in Italy.
Puglia 25 | Pt.2 – Ilford HP5+: different stock, different grain; images taken in Lecce and at the beach.
Puglia 25 | Pt.3 – Ilford FP4+: accidentally underexposed, but with some happy accidents. Mostly photos of Gallipoli.

As of today only Pt.1 is online, but please come back in a few days.