Basement

This is where my bicycle is spending most of the nights.

Taken with the XA and without flash and thus a little bit blurry.

The flag

I've had the XA in my jacket pocket pretty much every day in the last weeks and this is one of the most recent results.

Go there

Yes, yes, another arrow. December 2009 at Bahnhof Altona. From the, cough, single roll of film I shot with the XA so far.

Escalator

In Hamburg's Bahnhof Altona on December 17, 2009.

The XA loaded with Tri-X which was developed in Fomadon Excel.

Back to the roots

A funny picture maybe, and maybe it's pretty dynamic. And it's another hipshot. And it's a dog again.

But this photo is here mainly for two other reasons:

The first one is that it is from the first film I shot with my new Olympus XA. I wanted to have a camera that I can always carry with me in my jacket and got this one for less than 30 Euros (including shipping) from eBay. The jury is still out on whether I'll eventually like it. It certainly ain't a Leica, but if you get a camera for the price of a few rolls of film there isn't much to argue about.

The second reason, more important to me than the camera, is that I finally - after about twelve years - started to do my own film development again. It means I'm back to Tri-X, and this is the first roll - developed in our kitchen using a changing bag as a make-shift darkroom. Developer was Fomadon Excel.  Maybe it's kind of fitting that I'm posting this picture on my birthday...

The photo was taken a week ago (December 17, 2009) at the Lange Reihe here in Hamburg.