I learned about this challenge late last month, and immediately decided to do it. It’s straight up my alley, because it is my entire philosophy toward photography. All of my cameras are on a spectrum of shit, with a few outright shitboxes in the mix.

I even got myself a new one, out of practicality more than anything. I grabbed myself the Holga Micro-110, because the CamerHack film cutter I bought for my 127 cameras creates 110 film as a byproduct. I keep throwing out perfectly good film as a result, but I will need to find myself a re-loadable cartridge and a dev reel now. Apparently you can get them 3D printed, but I’m also not sure if the Holga will work with un-perforated film. There’s only one way to find out, I suppose. Either way, I’m going to at least need to get the reel, since past attempts to develop 110 off-cuts with the ‘spaghetti’ method have been abysmal. Also, I have no idea how to store the negatives, so I’m going to need to look into that.

A photo of a tall building, with a tree in the foreground. The sky is full of bubbles
A dramatic upward shot of a Hilton hotel. The sky is full of bubbles
Photo of a clock tower from below. It's framed by a taller building and trees. The sky is full of bubbles
Photo of the KOIN tower in Portland. It's a pinkish-orange colour. The sky is full of bubbles.
A row of bicycles and scooters on the side of a busy road

I went into Portland a bit more often than usual this year. Most of my photos from these trips had issues either in exposure or development. This roll suffered from some wash contamination in the dev solution, and instead of being developed in liquid, it got developed in foam. The result is the bubbles that appear in the light parts of the photos.

Black and white photo near a bus station. A 'do not enter' sign is in centre focus
Black and white photo of a pair of shoes dangling from power lines
Black and white photo of a brick building. A giant spoon is hanging from the eaves. On the ground below is a chalkboard advertising a Greek restaurant in the basement.
Black and white photo of a house. The photo is badly fogged
Black and white photo of a sign that's been knocked sideways. It reads 'red canoe employee parking only.' The photo may have been double-exposed by accident. There are black smudges on the edges of the frame.
A black and white photo of a gate, blocking off a wooded area. The photo is badly fogged.
Black and white photo of an aeroplane flying low overhead from behind a building. It is poorly.
Black and white photo of Portland Union Station. It's poorly exposed.
Black and white photo of a large, art deco building in front of a cloudy sky.

I’ve been getting into black and white recently, and I am not good at it. I got one good roll by what feels like chance, and then all the rest have been consistently terrible. I’m using Cinestill’s dev kit, but I want to try something else just to make sure it’s not entirely a me issue. But that also doesn’t explain why the first one I did where I know I hadn’t got the temperature right is somehow the best.

Photo of a stack of VHS tapes. There's a green coating over much of the image
Photo of a clouded sky. Trees and a cityscape are only recognisable by silhouette
Photo of a dramatic clouded sky above a grocery store. The colours are muted and grey
Photo of a quiet intersection, with a theatre on one corner. The image has skewed purple, and there's a green overlay over much of the image
Photo of a marijuana bud. The leaves around it are shades of green and purple.
Photo of a lake, with trees and a nearly-cloudless sky reflected on the water. The colours are all shades of purple and green.
Photo of a tattoo parlour at night. There's a green light on inside.
Photo of a street sign, with a pine tree behind it. The image has been badly burned by light leak.
Photo of a street sign. The colours are all shades of reds and yellows
Photo of a bunch of pigeons sitting on powerlines. The photo is shades of purples and greens.
Photo of a mock Tudor house. The colours are all shades of oranges and reds
Photo of an art deco hotel against a bright yellow sky. The entire photo has a yellow wash to it.

I’ve been doing a lot of experimental photography as well this year. I’ve redscaled some rolls, souped some, and have been playing with cross processing. I want to try to develop some in slide film chemicals, but I don’t have any yet. I do like the bleach bypass process the most so far.

Photo of a desk service bell. It's painted yellow, with a smiley face. It's surrounded by books and a price label maker
Photo of a pile of bones on an altar. A coyote skull is in centre focus. The entire photo is cast in UV light, giving it an eerie purple glow.
Photo of a group of road cones in front of a building. The photo is badly damaged from light leak, and the colours are all off and wrong.
Photo of a crocheted blanket, with balls of yarn in front of it. It's show with a very narrow depth of field, putting most of the photo out of focus.
Photo of a fence. It's graffitied with 'Free Baba Z'
Photo of a street lamp. The colours are all wrong, with the sky orange, and the highlights on the lamp blue.
Photo of a cow skull covered in silk flowers. The colours are all wrong, leaning toward blue.
Photo of a digger bucket. Welded into the bucket is Nutter 62"
Photo of a dirty, grimy window. Written on it are the words 'keep out,' as well as a smiley face with a very wide mouth
Photo of an old building, with a neon hotel sign. It is visibly abandoned.

I’ve also fallen in love with odd film stocks this year. I think Lomography Turquoise might be my favourite, with Cinestill 800T shot in daylight a close second.

Photo of a scrub jay perched in a tree
Photo of several Canada geese preening and fluffing their feathers
Photo of a male house sparrow looking down at the ground. The markings on his face make him look angry
Photo of a squirrel leaping across the grass. It's backlit, allowing its thin tail to show through the fur

I’ve still got the ancient-ass Canon Rebel, and mostly use it for shooting animals. It’s busted and wonky, but it’s still the only one of the lot that puts out consistent quality.

I start classes next month, and I seem to have everything sorted out for that. The only thing I need now are my books, which I technically don’t even need because I can just get the eBooks from the university’s website. But I would rather have physical books so I can write in them and keep better notes. Most of my classes from last time transferred over, so I should have enough federal aid left to finish.

I’m going with the ‘get all the boring shit out of the way first’ approach, and apparently I didn’t do well in maths last time, because I still have to do that shit. I’m so bad at numbers and shit. It’s going to kill me.

Luckily, this university does half-semesters, so I’m only doing two classes per eight-week term. I won’t be overloaded with a bunch of other classes, and decided to take intro to Anthropology alongside it so I have something easy next to it. This maths class, and some online literacy class are the only ones I have to take that I 800% do not want to do. I was looking at the syllabus for the online literacy one, and it’s very much geared at people who have no idea how to use the internet beyond posting to tiktok. It doesn’t seem like there’s any way out of it, either. Bleh. Oh well. I’m taking that one next section, so after that it’s only classes I actually want to take.

I’m also going to see how many independent study classes I can get away with taking, since the options offered by the university are pretty good, but not amazing. From the looks of it, there are going to be some gaps I’d like to fill, but again, that’s a bridge to burn when we get to it.