Harman Red is good at what it does. It makes red images. Very red. Properly, deeply red, in a way that no amount of conversion software is going to talk you out of.
I shot two rolls of it in 120, the first to learn from and the second to apply the learnings to. The honest report is that I am still not sure what the learnings were. So this review comes with a declared bias upfront: I have a slightly pathological dislike of novelty films, and I am going to try not to let that completely poison the assessment. But it is there, and you should know.
If you love novelty films, this is probably a film for you. If you do not, the review below explains why I am not buying any more rolls myself.
The bias, declared
I am not really a fan of novelty films. The turquoises, the purples, the redscale stuff, the films that impose a strong colour cast on every frame regardless of subject. My preference is for films that get out of the way and let me make the decisions: high-quality emulsions with their own subtle character, like Kentmere 200, which is trying to be a clean black and white film but ends up with a little of its own personality because of its limitations.
A film that makes everything red goes well beyond a touch of character. Every frame, regardless of subject, light, or intent, comes back red. You are not photographing things; you are photographing things-tinted-red. For some photographers that is exactly what they want, and that is fine. For me, it is the photographic equivalent of insisting on wearing a hat for every photograph: the hat becomes the photograph.
That is the bias. Harman were kind enough to send me two rolls of Red anyway and I owe it to them, and to anyone reading this, to try to be fair.
What Harman Red actually is
Harman Red 125 is a red-tinted colour negative film made by Harman Photo in the UK, the same company behind Phoenix and the various Ilford black and white emulsions. It was first released in 35mm and has now arrived in 120, which is presumably the entire reason I am writing about it.
The ISO is 125 (hence the name). The character is a strong red colour cast across the entire image. The base, the highlights, the shadows, all carry that red signature. It is not subtle and it is not meant to be.
The fact that Harman have brought it to 120 is significant. They did not announce 120 at launch. The decision to expand the format came after the 35mm sold well enough to justify it. So at minimum: someone is buying this film and shooting it and asking for it in 120. Whether that someone is me is the question.
First roll: the learning roll
The plan was to shoot the first roll across a deliberately mixed set of subjects, develop it, see what I had learned, then apply the learnings to the second roll.
The Rolleiflex SLX got the first roll. I shot the kids. I shot my wife. I shot some half-hearted landscapes. I shot some bits and pieces around the house. The intent was to gather data, not to make portfolio pieces.
The results were red, as expected, across every frame. Scanning was an experience. I run my scans through Negative Lab Pro, which is normally excellent and gets me reliably balanced files out of most colour negative stocks. With Harman Red, Negative Lab Pro essentially gave up. The conversions were all over the shop, no two frames consistent with each other, the algorithm visibly unsure what to do with an image where the red channel is doing most of the work. I tried to balance them out into something approaching a consistent look. I failed.
What did I learn? Honestly, nothing useful. I cannot point to a single observation that says “ah, with that knowledge, the second roll will be better.” The film does what it does and it does it consistently, regardless of how you point the camera.
![PLACEHOLDER: a frame from the first roll, showing the dominant red tint and the consistency of effect across subjects]
Second roll: applying the non-learnings
Out with the Bronica S2A for the second roll, trying to make some properly considered images.
Started with a tree silhouetted against the sky on a road verge. A nice tree. Maybe one of my favourite trees. I shot multiple frames of it from different angles, trying to see if the silhouette plus the red tint would amount to something. The frames came back interesting in a graphic sort of way. The red made the tree feel more dramatic than it actually was. Whether that is a good thing depends on whether you wanted dramatic.
Headed up to the Church of St Arilda, which is a frequent stomping ground for me, hoping the gravestones and the church architecture would give me something to work with. Overexposed slightly on most frames because Harman Red, like most novelty stocks, seems to handle overexposure better than underexposure.
Finished the roll with a shot of the church from down the hill, in the late afternoon light.
By the end of the roll I was, in my own words from the day, rattling stuff off. I did not know what I was looking for and the film was not giving me anything I could lock onto and develop a feel for. With Phoenix 2, by the end of two rolls I had clear opinions about what scenes suited it. With Red, by the end of two rolls, I had no real instincts. Every scene came back red and the question of whether it suited the subject was beyond my ability to answer.
![PLACEHOLDER: the tree silhouette frame from the second roll, showing what red can do for a graphic composition]
The thing I keep coming back to
There is interesting art being made with red as a deliberate medium. The most striking example I know is Wayne Martin Belger’s Untouchable series, where he built a pinhole camera that shoots through a small chamber of HIV-positive blood. The images are powerful, the technique is technically remarkable, and the red tint is doing real conceptual work. The medium is the message.
There are other artists working with blood as a literal photographic medium and producing meaningful images out of it. Red, in those projects, is not a filter applied to the image; it is the photograph’s reason for existing.
Harman Red is not that. Harman Red is a manufactured film stock that makes things red. You can shoot a project with it where the redness is the point, and the results would be great. Plenty of people have done exactly that and the work is interesting.
What I cannot quite work out is the day-to-day case. The casual roll. The “I have a Bronica and a free Saturday and I’d like to shoot a roll” case. The film commits you to a single creative direction (red, definitely red, only red) before you have even thought about what you are photographing. For me that feels backwards. For others it feels like the point. We are just different photographers.
Who Harman Red is for
If you already shoot novelty stocks and enjoy them, this is the latest one from a serious manufacturer. The quality control of a Harman product is going to be more consistent than some of the cottage-industry redscale stuff out there. It is a step up in production values.
If you have a specific project in mind where everything being red is conceptually right, then Harman Red is a tool that does what no other 120 film I know currently does. Plenty of reasons to buy a few rolls.
If you are in the “high quality films that get out of the way” camp like me, this is not the film for you. Stick to Portra, Phoenix 2, Kentmere, FP4. The films are no less interesting for being less assertive.
That Harman are bringing this out in 120 at all tells you that the 35mm version sold well enough to justify the expansion. So plenty of other people clearly do get it. I might be wrong. It would not be the first time. As I said in the video, I am the granddad at the modern art gallery in this scenario, complaining about the cow in formaldehyde.
But until I work out what to do with a red film that I cannot do better with a normal film, this one is not going on my regular shopping list.
Big thanks to Harman for sending the rolls. The conclusion would have been the same if I had bought them, which is honestly what matters for an honest review.