In case you thought Holga images were too smooth and finessed, I bring you a roll of HP5+ shot in a Holga 120N and grossly overdeveloped – the results being somewhat akin to a 35mm pinhole camera.

The subject is the Hopper Mausoleum, built in the 18th Century by Humfrey Hopper in memory of his wife, who died in 1752. It’s incredibly fancy but located in a very quiet spot, adjacent to the tiny St Andrew’s church near Kiln Pit Hill, not far from Derwent Reservoir in Northumberland. I’d spied this curious building many times when driving past but hadn’t been to have a look until this visit.

When I came to develop the film, I planned to semi-stand development for about 45 minutes in HC110, developed 1:160. However, I’d actually mixed the developer as “Dilution B”, at 1:31, so the developer was about 5 times as concentrated as it should be. As a result, the negatives were really dense, with images only just visible.

Normally I wouldn’t publish images that had gone so wrong, but I figured that Holga images were meant to be grungy so these could just be even more grungy than usual !

I do quite like these images but I’ll also go back to the location and either try doe some more normal Holga images, or possibly use large format paper negatives.