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British Museum 6

The day I took this photo at the British Museum, (on the original Ilford Sporti), I'd called into a cafe which appeared to be staffed entirely by Chinese people - which was the theme that day because I was visiting the Museum with 56 Chinese students. It was a remarkable cafe, they had a second hand camera shop in the front, and the cafe was out the back with wi-fi and a bookcase full of phonetics and phonology books. I went in because I was running short on film. They didn't have any HP5+, but the man gave me a roll of Tmax 100; he wouldn't take any money, and said something about it coming from China, (he had a strong accent, and I was so taken aback by getting a free roll of film, in London, that I wasn't really listening.

Anyway, when I got the Ilford Sporti 6, I put the Tmax through it. I dev'd it this afternoon and there seems to be some problem with the shutter; and it hasn't synched with the flash, which is why I got it. I got the original Sporti back out of the drawer and put a roll of HP5+ in it. The Sporti 6 just never felt right anyway - there's something reassuringly 1950s and solid about the older Sporti. The 6 is a 120 camera trying to be a low-rent slr, and it's not pulling it off very well. One knows where one stands with an original Sporti.

And what a bastard that Tmax was to get onto the spool of the developer. Herself had popped out to see her Mam, and The Bairn was playing, so there I am in the darkroom lobby press, trying to get this fucking incredibly springy film onto the spool, and of course the phone rings, and the Bairn's trying to find out where I am, and I'm trying to explain to a three year old that I'm in the cupboard and she mustn't come in and... What larks, eh?

I'm busy working until the middle of this month, and then things slow down a bit. So I'll do the garden, and some decorating, and sort out all of my 35mm gear - the Leica, the 40.5mm lenses and filters, the bulk film winder, even the half a dozen rolls of film I've got. It's all going on eBay, and I'm going 100% 120.

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