
Physical plant
Yashica-12
Ilford Pan-F Plus
2018
In my book, Square Photographs, I include a couple images I made at the Central State Hospital for the Insane. One of those photos is a detail of this building, which I entitled “I Wonder What This Could Be?” It was so named for the boarded-up window I photographed, onto which someone painted those words next to a little girl holding her arms out to the sky.
I said in the book that the building was in sad condition, and that an extensive renovation would be needed to make it usable again. This photo shows you what I mean. I didn’t share this in the book because I’d already selected two images from Central State and I needed to move on to other subjects.
I made this on Ilford Pan-F Plus, an ISO 50 film. I bought a five-pack of this stuff hoping it would be a good film for my box cameras. But it turns out it lacks the exposure latitude of Ilford’s FP4 Plus and wasn’t a great choice for my old boxes. I burned this roll in the Yashica-12 and sent my last roll to a blogging friend to try. As you can see, it performed beautifully in this camera that has an onboard meter for precise exposure.

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