The processing requires patient agitation and timing. I used Peters old photo developing tank so I could carry out the procedure under normal light.
There was a fly in the bathroom buzzing around the window as I prepared the coffee developer.
There was also a spider with very long legs and an elaborate web attached to the same window. Each time the fly brushed against a strand of the web the spider flew in that direction, but the fly, ever erratic and indecisive moved on too soon, hitting another strand and sending the spider racing to the other side of the web. Eventually, though, the fly struck too many web strands and was momentarily entangled giving the spider just enough time to move in.
Straightaway it began wrapping thread around the fly, which kept up a continuous buzzing that gradually diminished as it became more constrained. The moment the spider had nabbed the fly, a smaller spider of the same species came running over and hung out a few inches from the action as the wrapping took place. Worried my coffee mixture would go off while I was watching all this I left the scene and, in a room I had made dark with tarps, sheets and cloth, began wrestling 25 feet of film I had unspooled in the dark into the tank, spaghetti-style. I was aware my actions rhymed that of the spider and how it had wound the fly. When I returned to the bathroom, film in the can, the fly had been all wrapped up and put away somewhere. The large spider was nowhere to be seen but the smaller one was there still.
I processed the film, washed and fixed it and draped it on the old polished wood towel rail to air dry.
