[Leica] Divided D-76, and the lower 9th ward

[jsmith342 at cox.net (Jeffery Smith)]

I spent an hour shooting two rolls of film in the lower 9th ward this
afternoon. I am not optimistic that anything will be of much interest. There
is so much devastation, it just looks like one might expect after a nuclear
bomb detonating 20 miles away. I did find a child's toy rifle with a
collection of barnacles on the stock (wish I had taken a macro lens on an
SLR). I hope to get at least a PAW out of the 72 frames. Seeing so many of
people's possesions in the ruins was depressing, like someone emptied all of
your drawers and closets into the mud.

On another topic, I just mixed up a batch of divided D-76 (I was getting to
like D23 but my pastor somehow managed to knock all of the bottles off my
shelf last Wednesday, breaking every last one of them) and am wondering what
to expect. Theoretically, it is a good idea (saturate the emulsion with
developer, then place it in borax to develop the image with little
possibility of overdevelopment). Of course, if it was good, everyone would
be using it. Have ANY of you used it? If so, how did you like the results?
I'm also sort of attracted to the temperature latitude (you don't need to
measure temperature at alll, which is good since my wife put my Wesson dial
thermometer in the oven when she baked some corn bread the other day...she
couldn't figure out why the oven never got warmer than 125F).

Jeffery Smith
New Orleans, LA