Slow Shutter

Stand development, one year in

For the last twelve months every roll I shot went through the same process: developer diluted far beyond the usual ratio, thirty seconds of gentle inversions, then an hour of leaving the tank alone.

The appeal is forgiveness. Rolls shot at mixed speeds come out printable, and highlights stay soft because the developer exhausts itself in the dense areas long before the shadows finish.

The cost is bromide drag: faint streaks below bright edges where spent developer slid down the film. One extra, very gentle inversion at the half-way mark removed almost all of it for me.

I still use normal development for anything that matters. For walks and test rolls, the hour on the shelf is hard to give up.