A little while back I found myself doing a photo shoot at the last minute and the only film I had on hand was a few rolls of Ilford Delta 3200. It was a very cold and rainy day so I was stuck doing the shoot in my tiny apartment and normally Delta 3200 would be one of the last films I would pick under these circumstances. However, I would rather make photographs with a less than ideal film than not make photographs at all so naturally I wasn’t going to back out of the session.
This particular frame was developed in Rodinal and anyone familiar with Rodinal knows that it is not the most ideal developer for high speed films. One of Rodinal’s attributes is larger than average grain so when you are developing a high speed film the grain is really going to be pronounced. I put off developing this roll of film for a long time because I kept telling myself I should buy a developer better tailored to high speed films like Ilford DD-X or something similar but ultimately just gave in and used my go to Rodinal.
In this case I really don’t mind it so much though. There is some grit here to be sure, but I think it looks rather nice when contrasted with the soft window lighting and the smooth quality of the model’s skin tones.