A Retina at a Carnival

9 months ago

I've had this particular film sitting and ready to be developed for some time. It was a roll that I took to a nearby festival a couple months ago in my Kodak Retina IIa. I've shared some pictures from this camera previously, but this was my first time developing film from it with my caffenol recipe.

The carnival itself wasn't much to speak about. It was small, standard rides for a traveling carnival, standard games for a traveling carnival. There was a beer garden, which was fun. Expensive ass beer, but still fun. I did not take pictures of the beer garden.

But I did take a photo of these two dudes. I had actually been kneeling down to check the settings on the camera when they called out for a picture. I was not expecting it to turn out very well. Lo. It did.

My caffenol solution leaves more grain on the photos than the Cinestill DF96 I had used, but I'm not terribly concerned. It's instant coffee, after all. The key is getting the exposure correct, which can be tough with these old cameras, particularly when you keep forgetting to change the settings.

Here are a few other of my favourites. Perhaps the most interesting part of these photos is that I used my newly built lego-developer-agitator to assist in the process. I told @hannes-stoffel that I'd use it this week, so here it is. 😁