About the notebook

Practice before presets.

Halide Notebook is a compact record of the decisions that happen between loading a cassette and making a finished image.

I began keeping these notes after discovering that my favourite frames were difficult to repeat. The camera settings survived in memory; the small choices did not-the angle of the scanning light, a shortened pre-soak, the reason a colour curve was moved.

This site collects the parts worth returning to: exposure habits, development logs, carrier adjustments, dust-control routines, and restrained colour corrections. It is not a catalogue of perfect recipes. Film, chemistry, scanners, and rooms differ. The aim is to make each decision observable enough to test again.

Working principles

• Keep a baseline before making expressive changes.
• Record failures with the same care as successful frames.
• Prefer simple equipment that can be aligned and measured.
• Let the photograph remain more interesting than the process.

Written and maintained as an independent hobby project.