The latest assignment at UCS has taken the shape of a competition entry. I decided to enter the Fuji-film student awards ‘The Colour of…’ and despite a slow start with having a week off from a bad attack of influenza I am now buzzing.

10 rolls of 120 Fuji 160NS/400H plus 6 5×4 160NS later, I am having an interesting edit. Two very successful darkroom days printing on 20×24 Fuji Crystal Archive have made me rejoice in the joys of handcrafted C type prints. The 5x4s will get a go later this week as I have decided there are enough in the can for the moment. Also, it is important to have a dull wet day to shoot the the colour I am interested in so any re-takes will have to wait for rain.

I’ve also been sitting in on tutorials from Eamonn McCabe and his whole theme is on competition entry. Having someone like Eamonn with all his years of editing behind him makes for very constructive sessions. I’ve got 3 images selected to enter into Renaissance 2013. I might try re-shooting one of them now that I have 400H in the Fuji GW670III. Handheld 1/15th shutter speed tends to be a tad soft.

The Toyo View 45C got a run through its paces on Sunday morning before dawn. I hardly expected to find the car park I wanted to shoot in manned at that time but it was  and so far the B&W negs and colour look good. I did wonder why my hands were blue until I went looking for more shots and found the wet dock frozen over.