Beginning again, after all of this time, not to forget the wear and tear on body and mind, I’m excited and looking forward to learning how much I remember and what experience will bring to the process.
To start with after I found out the Ilford never lost the faith as did Kodak. Michael Smith and Paula Chamlee whose livelihood revolved around Kodak AZO contact paper started out by purchasing the remaining stock and finished by finding a manufacturer willing to re-create silver chloride contact paper. You can read their story here: https://www.lodima.org/photographic-paper
ADOX, a company re-created from whole cloth offers for sale not only silver chloride contact paper but so many other things that I’d never see for sale ever again.
https://www.adox.de/Photo/lupex-contact-printing-paper/
I could go on but I’m only showing a small sample of the film resources available to make a point.
The first four photographs, and we’re not counting the first four where the bellows came off the camera body, were planned for high contrast lighting with some straight lines and brick walls to test the lens and film. So. The first two photographs, the pecan grove at sunset, if I want to re-shoot them I would expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights to include more detail in the shadows. B&W offers this service, Push or Pull processing but I want to put on my Ansel Adams hat and do it myself. Therefore I would take my Gossen Pilot selenium cell light meter and meter on the darkest shadow for which I want shadow detail and close my aperture by one position. My meter give an average exposure for an average scene, but by doing this I take a Zone V reading and change or move it to Zone IV, one stop darker. I’m over exposing the film by one f: stop, I’m changing the film speed on the light meter for ASA 125 to ASA 50, or more correctly from the ASA 125 on the film box to an Exposure Index of 50. Developing for the highlights or Pull processing means that I will cut the development time just enough that I can use my film at EI 50 and make normal photographs with my light meter set for that EI value.
And then the fun begins.