Every rule I own about Portra says: rate it box speed or slower, never push, it's a portrait film not a reportage film. I broke the rule at a birthday party because the flash unit charged for four minutes and then declined to fire at all, twice, in front of a six-year-old who had only one more good mood left in her.
CX-2 mixed fresh because the stock bottle was four months past its last use and I wasn't gambling on a pushed roll. 38°C, +1 push times, agitation every thirty seconds — the chart in the back of the box is generous but the push chart said every thirty and I have learned to trust the push chart. The negatives came out dense, a little contrasty, oranges stubborn in shadow. But the faces, all fifteen of them, stayed human. Skin tone is the contract; everything else is footnotes.
Scan notes: Noritsu at the lab, exposure plus one on the pushed frames. Two came back looking like a filter app from 2013. I'll rescan at home when the Coolscan wakes up.