Episode 27: The Opera of Photography | All Through a Lens: A Podcast About Film Photography

We’re talking about Kodak Ektachrome – the history of the film and the various processes used to develop it. We’ll also give you some advice on shooting and developing expired film. We’ve got the answering machine question, some more trivia, AND we’ll give a call to Janet (@janet_built_a_wet_plate on IG), the woman who built her own wetplate camera.

After a bit of small talk and trivia, we get down to it! First up is the answering machine question:

Apart from photography, does other analog media play a role in your life?

We got a bunch of wonderful responses – and two people who still use reel-to-reels – amazing!

LET’S TALK ABOUT EXPIRED FILM

On our first segment, we both talk about our experiences with shooting and developing expired film. We get specific and continuously warn that there are no rules.

That whole “one stop for every decade” thing isn’t exactly bunk, but it’s not something you can ever count on.

First we go over how to shoot it – everything depends upon the original ISO and how the film was stored. You likely only know one of these things, so good luck!

Then we go over processing. Basically, box speed always.

Here are some of Eric’s oldest shots:

Camera: Mamiya RB67 Lens: Mamiya-Sekor 3.8/90 Film: Ilford Panchromatic; x-1960s; 6iso Process: HC-110; 1+90; 18min
Camera: Argus C3 (1953) Film: Adox KB-21 (expired 1951); 25iso Process: Rodinal 1+50; 14min
Camera: Ricoh KR-5 Film: Adox KB-21 (x-1959); 10iso Process: Xtol; Stock; 7min
Camera: Argus C3 (1953) Film: Adox KB-21 (expired 1951); 25iso Process: Rodinal 1+50; 14min
Camera: Argus C3 (1953) Film: Ilford Pan F (x-12/1960) Process: Rodinal 1+50; 10min

LET’S CALL JANET!

Suppose you wanted to shoot wetplate collodian, but you didn’t know much about cameras or photography. And then suppose that instead of buying an old ass camera to figure it out, you just built one yourself.

That’s Janet. And we had a wonderful conversation with her about camera building, wetplate workshops, the opera (she said that “wetplate collodian is the opera of photography”) and so much more. It really was a delightful interview.

THE HISTORY OF EKTACHROME

Ektachrome and its process has been around for nearly 75 years. We delved into the subject, talking about each of the various E’s (E-1, E-2, E-6, etc).

We used the research of Maurice Fisher and Michael Talburt (here) as the backbone, but fattened it up with various newspaper photography columns that were published as Kodak broke the news of Ektachrome (and the numerous iterations along the way).