Harman Red 125 - A Closer Look

Everything turned red

Is Redscale worth trying?

Experimental films get a bit of a bad wrap sometimes but I think just one roll here and there is a nice creative push for any photographer. The thing I find most challenging is not knowing quite how it will turn out…

The above image of the stop sign for example, was just something I took kind of casually with the flash (as usual) and I wasn’t really sure what the end result would be? I think it looks pretty wild! What do you think?

In the below photo of the building though it’s not quite as intense. It’s a bit more of a paired back look, but I like this too! This building has such great curvature and I couldn’t stop shooting it.

Redscale Project?

I think this film could be cool for certain types of projects and would provide a really unique visual style if you just leant in hard to the whole redscale universe.

Grainydays did a great video on redscale film a while back and the Blade Runner scenes he referenced were defiantly on my mind when I was shooting this film. There were some scenes in Dune 2 that had a redscale kind of look to them too so maybe we all need to do a movie marathon for redscale photography inspo to get us in the mood!?

In case you somehow missed it I have a full YouTube video where I share my thoughts on this film stock and also show a little of the very windy photo walk I went out on to capture these images. Although we generally have beautiful weather here in Australia it has been either blisteringly hot, raining or really windy this summer. In saying that even days when the weather is shit you can still get out there and end up with something interesting so don’t let the elements hold you back too much.

Addressing the elephant in the room

Okay so, is a new redscale film what we, the often disgruntled and #staybrokeshootfilm community needed… or wanted?

No

We want and so desperately need a C41 Colour film that is consistent, available and somewhat affordable. We need competition in the market and we need it soon.

I’m not going to harp on about this because I see Harman (ILFORD) as a company that could be that competition someday, plus they did bring out a new colour film not too long ago in the form of Phoenix and that was a feat and a move in the right direction.

Supporting this redscale film of theirs will no doubt help to fund the development of something that we maybe want/need a little more so if you can afford and you like the look of this film maybe order some?

The film manufacturing world is fraught with problems and i’m not really versed enough to discuss them in any way here but I just wanted to caveat my sharing of this newly announced film stock by saying that, yes I know, this is not really what we needed right now but hey, it’s kind of fun.

Despite being someone who loathes taking photos of the beach this was actually my favourite image from the roll. The below image is also a fav too. I was pleasantly surprised by this roll and it’s made me want to shoot more buildings again and also use my Nikon L35AW because the lens is so sharp and it’s a great weatherproof carry!

A few more images from the roll for you to check out

A quick side note - this post is a great example of a more photo heavy substack which for those of you who don’t enjoy writing, or want to use Substack in a more photo sharing capacity, could be a good example.

There are SO MANY PHOTOGRAPHERS here now - I can hardly keep up.

It’s awesome to see and I love it here so I hope you are all finding solace in this platform and feeling like sharing your work is worthwhile and nourishing again.

This was a bonus newsletter so i’ll be back next week with more musings and hopefully photos too. Stay creative!

Love Lucy x