Ilford Selochrome (type 120) from Rosanna, Victoria

This roll of Selochrome came from Rosanna, a beautiful suburb of Melbourne. We are trying to find out more information about the history of this film.

Selochrome was produced by Ilford for many years. The Selo company was a British manufacturer of photographic film that was formed in 1930 by Ilford and several other companies. The name was used by Ilford on their products from 1930 until 1946. This roll still has Selo logo so it must be produced before 1946. The backing paper on the top of the picture is from this roll, the one below is a more modern design.

The film was developed in Barry Thornton's two bath developer (4.5 min + 4.5 min). Only two 6x9 cm frames where shot, the rest of the roll remained unexposed. There is a lot of grain which is not uncommon for films that old. The second shot had to be cropped due to a light-leak near the edge of the frame.

The shots were taken from the same spot and include quite a bit of architecture. Was this intentional? Is it possible that the people on the photographs had just bought the house and wanted it to appear in the images? Or maybe the photographer was unfamiliar with the camera and put the subjects well in the centre of the frame as a precaution. The images are somewhat soft and it is not clear if this was a focusing error, an unsharp lens on a simple camera or natural degradation of the emulsion during 6 or 7 decades of storage.