Redscale

I somehow managed to mis-load a roll of Harman Phoenix. So instead of throwing it away I decided to see if I could salvage the situation by redscaling it.

If you don’t know what redscale is, it is shooting colour film on the “wrong side” so you are basically flipping the film over. To be fair, I didn’t know what redscale was until recently.

When I sent the film off for processing I had no idea if I managed to wreck the roll when I mis-loaded it or when trying to flip the film over in the changing bag.

To be safe that I hadn’t taped the film back on to the backing paper in the wrong place, I took a couple of blank frames first. And to my surprise, the film came back with something on it.

It is definitely flipped over because the first frame was set to the correct exposure measured at 100 ISO but is very under exposed. Then the following six frames were exposed in plus one stop increments.

To my eye, the +5 exposure seems to be the best version.

It isn’t perfect but I do like the colours through this process. If Harman made some redscale rolls of Phoenix in 120 I would buy some. It is a real pain trying to flip the film over. I somehow attached the film to the numbered side of the backing paper rather than the black side as you can see the numbers leaked through to the film.

If you want to try this yourself, there are YouTube videos who have done a better job than me.

15 February 2025 Yesterday Harman announced that Harmon Red in 35mm was now for sale. I was worried watching the reviews on YouTube that the out of the box redscale film would be a one off and won’t be available in 120 format. On social media they have confirmed that 120 is being worked on and to watch this space.

Speaking of social media, I don’t really understand the hate for the Harman Phoenix project and the slow progress towards a polished product. For whatever reason, there are film photographers out there who want Harman to replicate other manufacturers’ film stocks that are already in existence. This makes no sense to me.

Back in the day when I was shooting film my choice was either Fuji or Kodak for colour and Kodak for black & white. I remember using a couple of Ilford XP C41 black & white films on a few occasions. What I don’t remember is getting wound up by what the companies were doing with their film stocks to send a letter in the post to complain if I didn’t like what was going on.

I get that back in the day that there were more varieties of film stocks compared to today. And that making comments on social media is part of the game. But really? If you don’t like what films are currently in production then you can always use a digital camera, tweak it and then post the picture online.

16 July 2025 Harman today launched Phoenix II which as the name suggests is the second iteration of the film. I thought I was going to have time to look at Harman Red after getting a couple of rolls a few weeks ago.

As this film has a strong red colour, the subject matter needs to be right. Shooting it on the wrong subject would be a disservice to it. So I’ve decided to put this on hold until after I’ve played with Phoenix II.