Dev Party #11: Fire Party!

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05/19/20 • 31 min

All Through a Lens: A Podcast About Film Photography

This week on Dev Party we’re trying a new-to-us developer! Well... that’s not quite true. You’ll see.

It was Vania’s idea to give Pyro a try, so we both picked up PMK Pyro by Photographer’s Formulary. And well... you’ll see.

Here on Dev Party, we are certainly used to and even welcoming of failures. They can lead to more knowledge and better days. And this failure is no different. It was just weird and unexpected. Again, you’ll see.

This was the first time we ever tried this developer. You’ll hear us reading from the instructions, talking a bit about what Pyro is, and witness our first experiences with the developers. Basically.

The important thing is that we both liked the results.

And speaking of results, here are some scans...

We also hear from Aloy Anderson and Jennifer Froula Webber about their thoughts and tips for shooting Fuzzy Pürrito!

This week on Dev Party we’re trying a new-to-us developer! Well... that’s not quite true. You’ll see.

It was Vania’s idea to give Pyro a try, so we both picked up PMK Pyro by Photographer’s Formulary. And well... you’ll see.

The important thing is that we both liked the results.

And speaking of results, here are some scans...

We also hear from Aloy Anderson and Jennifer Froula Webber about their thoughts and tips for shooting Fuzzy Pürrito!

Previous Episode

Episode 18: This is Pure Record, Not Propaganda (with Kat Swansey)

On this episode, we talk a new old emulsion, we ask (and hear) about your first film camera, we dig into a few Depression Era photographers, have some more good news, and give a call to Texas photographer Kat Swansey.

The New Old Emulsion: Fuzzy Pürrito!

Get It Here!

Following up fast on the heels of The Slow Meow, we’ve got another limited run of new old emulsion. This time it’s a rebranding of Svema MZ-3, another Soviet-era film that’s been kicking around for a few years.

If you want dreamy and soft photos with quite a bit of haloing in the highlights, Fuzzy Pürrito – FuzzPürr for short – is the emulsion for you!

Our batch of this emulsion shoots at 12iso. This might seem a little limiting, but on a Sunny 16 sort of day, you’d shoot this at 1/100th of a second with an aperture of f/5.6 – three stops slower than 100iso. So give it a shot – push yourself to try something new. We’re offering a 3 pack for a pretty affordable price.

And developing it is pretty easy too, but you’ll need HC-110. For the FuzzPurr, you’ll have to use Dilution H (1+62). Do this with normal agitation for 9 minutes and you’re good. This doesn’t do well in stand development. It might be tempting, but you’ll definitely get better results with this formula. And of course, it fixes as normal.

We have three-packs of this film for sale on Eric’s etsy store for $18. Each roll has at least 24 frames on it, though the way that Eric rolls, you’re more likely to get 30. And at $6 a roll, that isn’t too bad. You’ll also get a few stickers, postcards, and an All Through a Lens button.

Here are some sample shots:

Firsties!

Vania’s first film camera (destroyed by a fall from a horse).

For our answering machine question, we asked:
What was your first film camera?

And we got a ton of replies!

Hello, Kat!
For our interview, we give a call to Kat Swansey. She grew up in a small Texas town outside of Houston, but now calls Austin home. With her 35mm Canon, she explores her smalltown roots, capturing them in vivid color.

And here are a few more:

Depression-Era FSA Photography

We dig into the early FSA photographers and discuss a few of their photos.

The early days of the project brought together Dorothea Lange (who ran a very successful portrait studio in San Francisco), Arthur Rothstein (president of the Columbia University photography club, and star pupil of Stryker’s – at first he was just used to set up the darkroom, but he eventually picked up a camera), Walker Evans (a well-known documentary photographer and pal of Earnest Hemmingway), as well as Carl Mydans (a photojournalist for the Boston Globe) and Ben Shahn (Evan’s former roommate and a well-known painter – Evans was really pulling for him).

Here are the ones we cover:

Dorothea Lange – Toward Los Angeles, California Arthur Rothstein – Heavy black clouds of dust rising over the Texas Panhandle, Texas Walker Evans – Floyd Burroughs, Alabama Sharecropper Carl Mydans – “Damned if we’ll work for what they pay folks hereabouts.” Crittenden County, Arkansas. Cotton workers on the road, carrying all they pos...

Next Episode

Episode 19: Those Beautiful Moments In Between (with David Chao)

This is an episode full of questions! We’ve got answers! Have you ever wondered how labs develop black & white film? Do your photos tell a story? We’ve also got an interview with David Chao, a zine review and some news!

Answering Machine
Do you feel that your photos or a selection of your photos tell a larger story?

It was an odd question this week. Did it break Eric? It probably did. But we had an array of answers and some fun discussion.

Hello, David
Our interview this episode is with David Chao. David grew up between San Francisco and Osaka, Japan. The way he captures the story of a people and their culture is something a bit different than we’ve seen before. While his individual photos may be striking, his series and collections are what create his powerful narrative.

@davidchao.film on IG
davidchaophotography.com

Here are a few of his photos:

How Do Labs Process Black & White Film?
But when a photographer drops their film off at a lab, all of those choices are left to the lab. Now, granted, these folks are professionals, often with decades of experience. They’ve honed their craft from an art to a science and back again.

Still, we’ve always wondered what happens when you drop black & white film off at a lab. We’ve both done it before, and both had no idea what goes on behind the scenes. We just dropped off the rolls and picked them up a few days later. They looked great and we didn’t really question why.

But now we are. Why? Why do they look so good? It’s a question that’s always been in my head. So we reached out to about a dozen labs – and a HUGE thanks to the five that responded.

We asked them two questions. First:
Do you have a specific developer that you use or each common emulsion?

And second:
What is the practice for when a customer brings you a roll of some mysterious black & white emulsion? For example, some oddball low ISO Soviet film.

We talked with five different labs:
Panda Lab – @pandalabseattle
Cafe Obscura – @cafeobscurasudbury
Roberts Camera – @robertscamera
IconLA – @iconla
Blue Moon Camera – @bluemooncamera

Each answered these two questions in some really interesting and unique ways.

Zine Review

This is a halfsize, landscape zine, 32 pages, color and b&w. As the name highly suggests, this was taken on a roadtrip from New York to Charleston, South Carolina, though he dips down into Savannah.

The photos are mostly empty, which is right in my wheelhouse. This is what I like to shoot, and this is what I like to see. The B&W shots, mostly on HP5, live up to all the praise of that emulsion. Even the Fomapan looks wonderful (something I really can’t make happen).

Daniel recently reprinted this issue, and it’s available on his website – danielnovakphoto.com for $8.

The Slow Meow Zine
Our first rebranded film was dubbed the Slow Meow (it was Tasma Mikrat 200). It was neat to see how many of you used the hashtag and shared their results on IG.

So we’ve been talking about this. While this is *our* podcast, we really like to open it up to the community. And because of that, we’d like to make a community zine. And since so many of you shot with the Slow Meow, we’d like to make a zine of a selection of those photos.

So if you got the film, we’d like you to submit six of your favorite Slow Meow photos

We’re going to compile a zine together with everyone who has shot with it. Everyone who appears in the zine will receive a free copy (you can always buy more copies). The rest will be sold and traded like any other zine.

Criteria:
Size of image: at least 3600 x 2400(ish) at 300dpi
Cut off date: July 30
Submit via Email only: [email protected]
Info needed: Name; IG/Twitter handle; Camera used; Mailing address

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Be sure to check out our Dev Party episodes. They’re about to get even more pee-inducing!

Music by Last Regiment of Syncopated Drummers

Vania: