The last time we walked around the industrial estate where UKFL HQ resides we came across a collection of industrial units tucked away around a corner, and to our surprise we found an old abandoned car- a Rover V8- engine removed, but keys still in the ignition. At the time we first came across it I was shooting b&w film and Erica was camera-less, so we decided to return another day with colour film. Further to my previous experiment pulling Portra 400 in development, I decided to experiment some more to see if I would like it just as much as before and to see whether the particular traits I had experienced during scanning would be apparent again.
I’m happy to say that I’m really liking the effect that pulling has on Portra 400. As I’ve said before, I don’t usually shoot Portra 400 for my own work and prefer the colour palette of Fuji 400H, so I’ve been keen to experiment with Portra 400 to see if I can find a look with it that I like. As I found with the previous rolls that I’ve pulled, there is actually quite a remarkable difference in how ‘available’ the shadows are during the scan process, compared to Portra 400 that has been developed normally. The combination of brightness, shadow detail and contrast are almost perfect for me without having to do hardly anything other than colour correction.
So here are the images of ‘Jessica’, shot on my Pentax 67ii with Portra 400 pulled in development at UK Film Lab. If only a car could talk, I would love to hear her stories of a time gone by.
