Here we are. Time for some words.

I don’t have big dreams. I find them distracting and counterintuitive. What I have is a collection of “knacks” acquired through small, persistent and concentrated steps. In order to collect these knacks , I get tangled in personal projects.

Film photography was a long standing project of mine. A while back, in my salad days, I used to have a dark room in my student flat. It was ill-equipped and sparse but I adored it. I spent days and nights in that little room. Things were starting to happen. I even managed to mount and gift a few decent prints. Then years started to pass by and I started moving. Digital medium became a thing and I kept jumping between various doodads.

I always felt the pang of losing my darkroom and I’ve even made some semi-successful attempts in getting back to film. Last year, I made the definite move. I traded my digital kit with a TLR film camera and a few rolls of films.
I found a giant enlarger from ’60’s, emptied a chaotic storage space, frantically light proofed it, worked on some wiring and brought in a metronome instead of a proper timer. My dark room was ready. Well, maybe not in the traditional sense but it was fairly operational.

Last summer -after 20 odd years- I printed photos that I’ve shot on film. After about twenty rolls and fifty-ish prints, the whole thing still feels more or less experimental… and I love it! I make my own developer (Caffenol) and I use it for both film & paper with good results. I have a small stash of dated FB (fibre-based) papers. Around 250 to 300. That stash gives me some room to experiment and to find my way in the craft. Little by little, a visual style emerges from the back of my head.

I keep an actual darkroom log where I note each session’s info but I lack a collection of the whole journey. I also lack any friends that I can discuss photography with. My memory is not the strongest. Adding all up, a blog seemed like a good idea. If any of my experiments help other people along the way, I’d be really happy. I’ll try to share as much technical info as I can. I’ll also share the blunders, dead ends and missed opportunities. These are the most useful parts in my opinion.

A few days back, I’ve concocted my first bottle of “Parodinal”. That will be the second DIY developer in my arsenal. My goal is to test another developer as an alternative to coffee based recipes.
Instant coffee became unreasonably expensive, for the muck that is and I’ve read a lot about various uses of Rodinal clones. My first post will be a detailed one about my (hopefully rewarding) PaRodinal experience.

So here we are. Thank you for reading my first jumble of words. I feel somehow indebted to you. Below, there’s a scan of a photo that I shot and printed. If it creates even the tiniest tingle in your mind, stay around for more photos and photography-related-jottings.

Tomorrow is a dev day! Wish me luck and take care.

120 // Mehmetcan Serinkaya

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© Mehmetcan Serinkaya 2024-