Saint John's Abbey
Fujifilm NEOPAN 100 ACROS II
Fujifilm Neopan 100 Acros II — fine grain, deep contrast, a working-class quietude. Shooting this classic, low-speed emulsion and developing it in Xtol gives you a tonal sheet with almost no perceptible granularity at base ISO and a midtone roll-off that's more cinematic than clinical.
In short: Acros II + Xtol is the film you reach for when you want grit without grain — when you want the geometry to sing without the emulsion getting in the way.
Photographed on Fujifilm Neopan 100 Acros II — fine grain, deep contrast — these images document one of America’s great works of sacred architecture.
Completed in 1961, the Saint John’s Abbey Church in Collegeville, Minnesota is a landmark of Brutalist conviction. Its monumental concrete bell banner and honeycomb facade are not ornament but structure — form made honestly visible. Marcel Breuer, a Hungarian-born Jew who fled Europe ahead of the war, was entrusted by Benedictine monks to design their most sacred space. What emerged was not compromise but clarity — faith expressed through geometry alone.
Acros II, with its dense shadows and restrained highlights, felt like the right film for a building that asks to be read in light and mass.
Leica MP | Voigtländer Ultron 28mm f/2 | Fujifilm Neopan Acros II 100 | Xtol 1:1