One of the big advantages of developing your own film is that it gives you the flexibility to shoot and develop under different conditions.
An example of this is pushing film where you shoot and develop your film at a different speed than what it’s rated for. I recently developed some older rolls of Kodak Tri-X 400 which were deliberately shot two stops under (at 1600), and then processed two stops over as if it was rated as 1600 film.
The result of this type of processing is higher contrast, increased grain, darker shadows and brighter highlights.
These images were of the Black Summer bushfires in Australia in 2019 just after they had scorched the landscape in my local area. I thought the blackened landscape would work really well with this type of processing to exaggerate the impacts and remnants of the fires.
You will notice the strong contrast, heavy blacks and smokey whites with some areas in the shadows will be lacking details as the blacks are crushed.
