Digital Hangover

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that Photoshop, Lightroom and their ilk have a tendency to spoil photographers in so far as their near infinite "post processing" potential can be difficult to replicate in a darkroom print. I was concerned that, unless I got back into darkroom printing in a big way, I might be unable to, ahem, "achieve my creative vision" without Photoshop input.

It prompted a comment (which I thought would be better explored in this post than added to my earlier one) from my local cyber pal, Phil Rogers, to the effect that I was worrying too much and should just enjoy the darkroom printing experience.

That got me thinking (this is going to be a long post so if I were you I'd get the coffee on now!). Before my digital distraction, which lasted for about seven years - the seven year itch? - I'd become a good darkroom printer producing a few prints that were accepted in international exhibitions, whatever that counts for (I also had an inkjet print from an early HP desktop printer accepted and I can literally count the dots in the highlights with the naked eye). In those days my negatives didn't need an awful lot of work, the aim being to produce a print that was a fairly literal translation of the subject matter. I used to produce prints like the two below, both of which were copied quickly for this post using the 28-105mm Nikkor on the D700.

All was fine until I bought Creative Elements by Eddie Ephraums, a book that showed how much moodiness and emotional impact can be added to a scene by better visualisation and enhanced darkroom techniques. I loved the stuff that Eddie produced - even more so when he said that he didn't necessarily wait for the perfect light but relied on his printing skills to deliver the effect he was after. This was right up my street as a young family didn't leave a lot of time for  hanging around in a landscape or getting up early to catch the dawn light.

My prints were then more creative but still relatively straightforward with manipulation usually confined to burning in skies, edge burning, split grading and occasional selenium toning. Below are three that are typical of the kind of subjects I was tackling and the way I was printing. Again, these are D700 copies of the original prints.

Then along came digital to shake up every photographer's world. Almost everything Eddie had spent years perfecting in the darkroom was suddenly available to me. I'm a good self-teacher and became quite proficient in the use of Photoshop being able to do just about anything I could visualise. My photography changed pretty dramatically with the initial raw file normally bearing very little relation to the completed photograph. The best way to illustrate this is with a few examples I have to hand:

Amongst other things I blurred the background, darkened the sky and lightened the ground behind the gate to make it stand out more. 

The biggest change here isn't the most obvious: I chopped a bit out of the frame to bring the tree closer to the ruin to achieve more of a connection between the two with the left hand branch reaching over to touch the gable wall.

As in the shot above, there's a bit of the Seine excised between the prow of the boat and the bridge to reinforce the feeling of sailing right into the Ile de La Cite. The boat was also stretched laterally so that it emerged from the bottom corners of the frame.

To be honest, straightforward, literal, black and white conversions of these raw files would have been dull. The creativity is in the post-processing but you have to be able to see the potential in the shot at the taking stage and know how to get there. Eddie Ephraums (it's a very interesting website - please visit) was able to do much of this in the darkroom. I'd struggle to achieve that. Below are a couple of Eddie's shots showing his ability to transform the mood of a scene (apologies for the quality of these reproductions: they're copied from Creative Elements and the surface has a sheen that kept picking up the light when I was photographing them. The before and after negatives aren't identical but very similar):

Possibly my favourite photographer today is Bill Schwab who, like Eddie, has quite a dramatic style that really gets to the heart of a scene in the way a straight print could seldom do. He's a film user/darkroom printer, too, and produces photographs I can only aspire to. Here are a few:

My favourite Bill Schwab photo.

So there's a little bit of background about how I finally arrived at the type of photograph I like to take - moody, atmospheric vignettes rather than sweeping vistas, portraits or people shots. Photographs that almost demand a lot of manipulation whether it's in Photoshop or the darkroom. And that's the problem: digital has enabled me to pursue visualisations that I might not be able to achieve at the enlarger. Since returning to the darkroom on the few occasions I've managed to do some printing I've found that it's a damn sight harder to do what I'd like to do.

That's where Phil came in. He saw my brief mention of this potential problem in the earlier post and said, "I think you might be worrying a little too much about darkroom work. At the end of the day a silver print is something YOU have spent time and effort on. It isn't a result of some programmer's parameters, it isn't generic, it is yours with all its faults and hopefully good bits.

"Yes printing by hand is a very big learning process and one is always learning, but at least you now have a darkroom to practise in - all you have to lose is the money you spend on paper. And remember at the end of the day, you'll have a (hopefully) gorgeous, tone-full print, that (when you pop your clogs) someone can look at, go, "gosh wasn't he good at that" . . and then chuck it in the skip!"

Phil likes the photographs I produce in Photoshop from scans but finds it easier to make a silver print but that's probably down to the fact that he is able to take photographs that don't require a lot of manipulation.

A Different Type of Hybrid
By my reckoning, I have three solutions to my dilemma. The first is to get back into the darkroom in a serious way and, by dint of hard graft, learn to produce the look I like. That would be my first choice. It's the purest form of photography for me and would give me the greatest satisfaction. It's also the most difficult option.

Or I could change my style to suit the darkroom process by taking photographs that don't need as much mucking about to reach the end product. I do take some pics that are like that but they tend to come from walkabouts or when shooting indoors with a fast film. When I get out the heavy gear and tripod and drive into the countryside, I'm normally looking for the moody, hard-to-print stuff.

Finally, I could cheat whilst still remaining true, in a slightly different, hybrid way, to film and the darkroom. This would involve the use of a filmwriter, a machine that displays digital images on a screen within a light-tight box but which has a camera or film back looking down on it by which means the screen display is captured on film.

Now, as luck would have it, I actually have one of these things. It cost £37,000 in 1995 and is a very high quality bit of kit. You'll be relieved to know that I paid a tiny fraction of that price - really tiny - for it a few years back but never really got to grips with it. It's not the most user-friendly device and the learning curve is steep. I've had some decent results from it in the past but haven't persevered long enough to fine tune the set-up.

A quick iPhone shot of the filmwriter - the
clown is a leftover from Freya's bedroom
when she moved into my old darkroom.
It adds a nice, surreal touch.

In essence, a big digital file is uploaded to the machine's built-in computer via an ethernet cable and the image is then displayed on a small but incredibly high resolution flat CRT screen. My machine can take negatives from 35mm through 6x7 to 5x4 and 10x8. For the two larger sizes you need REALLY big files to make it worthwhile: either high resolution scans from large format negs or a composite of half-a-dozen digital files.

Once the camera or film back has captured the image on the screen, the film is developed in the normal way and should, at least in theory, produce a negative that prints straight in the darkroom with a result that looks just like it did on your monitor. Well, in theory there should be no difference between theory and practice but in practise there often is. My biggest problem was a slight softness in the negs which, it turned out after much head-scratching, was the result of a heavy layer of dust sitting atop the dichroic filters necessary when producing colour negs or slides. Since I was doing black and white, I just removed them.

That improved the sharpness no end but I find I'm still losing some shadow detail. If I can crack that nut then I might be tempted to go down the filmwriter road, photographing either on film or digitally, transferring the image to a negative via the filmwriter, developing the film and then printing in the darkroom. Of course, not every negative would need this treatment. For a lot of simpler subjects, it would be easy enough just to do a print directly from the original negative.

That really is the best of all worlds in some respects for a photographer like me. You have the ability to use Photoshop to get the scan or raw file looking exactly as you'd like it and, with all that difficult manipulation out of the way, produce a print on what I still consider to be the best medium - a fibre-based, silver gelatin darkroom print. I've often thought that the more common hybrid route of shooting film, scanning it and printing digitally gets things the wrong way round and doesn't make best use of the strengths of the materials and processes.

But I'm probably getting slightly ahead of myself, as I usually do. The darkroom is finished and will shortly be in fully usable condition. Once I've got back into the swing of things and feel comfortable again I'll see if I'm able to produce the kind of prints I like and take it from there. In the meantime, though, I'm going to give some attention to the filmwriter to see if I can get it to fulfil its promise. I'd imagine that, if it results in the ability to do a high quality, straight darkroom print of a very complicated scene, it would be well worth the effort. I'll keep you posted.

Invitation to join my Flickr group

UPDATE: We're up to 22 members now and growing so hop aboard! Thanks to everyone who's responded so far.

This is the result you get when you take a photograph of your
computer screen with an iPhone. Not good!

I've probably mentioned before that blogging can feel a bit lonely sometimes. I take photographs, write stuff and post it here and the only confirmation I have that anyone is actually taking an interest is when you leave a comment. That's why comments are so important for bloggers: they make us feel loved. :-)

A while back, I had the idea of setting up The Online Darkroom Flickr group where people who follow the blog can post examples of the kind of work they're doing themselves. That would let me see what you're all up to and what your fellow followers are doing. The idea is that the group would become a two-way street as opposed to the one-way street that a blog almost inevitably has to be (with the notable exceptions of much-valued contributions from Omar and Phil).

In the group "sticky" I've said, "I thought it would be nice to have more of a two-way exchange so please feel free to upload your favourite film-based black and white work to the group pool. Negative scans are OK but scans of actual darkroom prints are even better. Uploads are limited to two a day to keep the pool to a manageable size."

So please take this post as your invitation to join the group. I decided to limit the uploads in case there are some machine gun shooters out there who might be tempted to upload 30 pics a day. It's probably much less likely where film photographers are concerned but some Flickr groups have such big photo pools that some of the pics may never be viewed by anyone.

I quite fancied the idea of restricting membership to followers of this blog but I don't think that's really possible. Put it this way, if you're not a follower and don't want to join (it's a free country) you'll not be turned away. I called it "my" group in the post title but I hope it becomes "our" group. So don't be shy. I really don't want to be the only member of my own group!

35mm Zone System?

A while back I wrote an article (Zone System for Roll Film listed under the right hand column) about trying to get something approaching the zone system using 35mm film. The big problem, of course, is that you can't give separate frames - or even groups of frames shot under the same conditions - individual treatment when it comes to development.

My solution was to meter as for the zone system to place important tones where you want them - basically, to ensure you get sufficient shadow detail where it's needed - and then use two-bath development to control highlight development so the brighter tones don't become blocked and unprintable.

However, I read something the other day that has made me change my mind, although I haven't tried it yet. This technique involves something that could seriously bugger up your camera if you're not careful so be warned and do so at your own risk!

Basically, if you're out shooting in bright sunshine, you meter to place your tones where you want them and take a note of the development necessary to control the highlights. The clever bit is that if the light is completely different the next time you're out with your camera and with the very same film in it - say it's dull and misty - you shoot a blank frame on the "B" setting (or, better still, "T" if you have it) before you start snapping and, while holding the shutter open (and with the mirror out of the way if you're using an SLR), you reach in through the lens throat and put a small and thin piece of sticky tape on the emulsion side of the exposed film frame. Close the shutter, meter for your tones and, again, make a note of the necessary development. This operation can be repeated again and again whenever the light changes sufficiently to merit different development.

When it comes to loading the completed film onto your spiral, you simply feel for the first bit of tape and cut through it with a pair of scissors. Peel off the tape and load and develop this first section according to your development notes. When it comes to the rest of the film, just locate the other pieces of tape, cut through them, load the individual sections of film and develop.

This might seem like a bit of a palaver but it's easier than shooting individual sheets of film using a 5x4 camera and the results, from a tone control point of view, can be pretty similar.

As I said earlier, I haven't yet tried this but I can't see why it wouldn't work. No doubt stationery stores will have tiny pieces of pre-cut tape available which would make the process quicker and easier. It could be used with 120 format SLR cameras as well but it isn't quite as efficacious since losing a couple of frames on a 12-exposure roll is expensive and it's quite possible to shoot the whole roll in one location anyway. 

The danger is that you accidentally release the shutter while your finger is inside the mirror box about to stick the tape on. If the shutter closes on your finger then you're very probably going to regret ever having read this post. You might get away with it with some shutters but there's every chance you will break your camera if it goes wrong. This isn't an issue with the process but with the operator! I suppose it's also possible with a battery-dependent camera that the juice might run out during the operation and close the shutter on your finger so be alert to that one as well.

I'm too lazy to use the sticky tape method with a proper zone system approach but I can see me using it to control tones in flat, normal and contrasty conditions*. Obviously, with flat conditions, you might want to extend development by, say, 20% to get a bit of pep into the negatives. Contrasty conditions might require a similar cut in development. You'd need to do you your own testing to work this out.

And think how much easier it would be when it comes to printing if your negatives have all the tones just where you want them.


* Another way of coping with flat, normal and contrasty conditions is by carrying three camera bodies each with the same film and clearly marked so that you can shoot, for example, all the low contrast shots on one camera and develop accordingly, etc.

Another Day, Another Darkroom - Part Three

Well, that's it done. It took a little longer than I'd anticipated but my darkroom is now complete. That's not to say that it's ready for printing - those are two quite separate conditions. The photographs you see here are the room just after I'd finished putting in the shelving and attaching all the kitchen units.

It didn't stay in this state for long as all the stuff that had cluttered up my old darkroom was sitting on the landing outside the new darkroom. Most of it is back in the darkroom now and the clutter is, once again, quite debilitating! Never mind, though, as I've started off-loading more gear on Ebay to clear some space. The demise of my MX5 Gleneagles (see previous post) also means that I won't be needing space for the car in our garage. I'm going to tidy the garage up so that I can store some of the clutter there instead.

The pic above is the set-up for the Durst L1200. I left a space at the right hand side of the unit so I had somewhere to store the massive RR Beard easel I picked up for a tenner. I'm not sure if I'll ever need it but it's nice to have just in case. I've also got a box here that contains a wee studio background set-up - that was another of those hard-to-store things.

A couple of portfolio cases take up the remaining space. The whole Durst work station is very solid - you really can't move it at all no matter how hard you try. When I fix the top of the column to the wall, it will be bomb-proof. There's a reasonable amount of shelf space and there are two areas - one on either side of the room - where I can sit for spotting, etc. I have a wee stereo unit opposite the Durst so I can listen to my Mantovani and Richard Claydermann CD collections.*

The Leitz V35 workstation is similarly robust. If I can't produce decent prints from this set-up I might as well pack it in! The only things remaining to be done are light proofing of the window and door. A window blind would be nice so I could let in some natural light but covering the glass with tin foil would be simpler and quicker. The door will need some draught excluder around the door frame and something to block light at the bottom. Remove the crap that's now in the darkroom and we're ready to go!

* A wee joke there, folks.

Goodbye Little Friend

It doesn't look too bad, does it? But beneath that nice exterior, there's about 30 hours of welding required to make my wee MX5 Gleneagles roadworthy. As mentioned in my previous post, the cost of repairing the rusty metal inboard of the rear wings was too great for me. That task has now fallen to Iain Scoular, the new owner of my car.

Iain's an interesting guy. He's an ex-engineer who went back to university to become a minister. He and his wife race cars in their spare time. He also rides a Harley Davidson and says it helps him get his message across when he turns up for school assemblies on his powerful bike. It's not often the minister is cooler than the high school kids.

My MX5 will be Mrs Scoular's regular transport. I'm sure she'll have great fun with it and that it will prove a reliable car. It didn't let me down once in seven years. Great handling, good economy, 100% reliability, wind-in-the-hair motoring (or wind-over-the-scalp in my case), a cheeky character. What's not to like?

It's difficult to say how much I'd been looking forward to getting my car back on the road after it had spent the last 30 months sitting in the drive. There's an MX5 owners club meeting in Pitlochry next month and I'd intended to turn up in my newly-renovated roadster. That was before the bad news from the garage about the rot.

I took this picture in an effort to achieve closure but it hasn't worked. Everywhere I look I see MX5s. I've since noticed that I pass a Mk1 when driving to the golf course with the dogs. I'd never seen it before. Just last night we were watching the film, Loopers. What car does the main character drive? Yup, a Mk1 MX5. I just about fell off the couch when I saw that. The only consolation is that my MX5 has gone to a good home and will, in due course, be racing along country roads again - just without me at the wheel.

So that's me car-less for the first time since I passed my driving test about 30 years ago and, given the state of our finances, it's unlikely that will change any time soon. Bummer.

It's just as well I'm almost finished my darkroom as I'm getting spoiled by Adobe Lightroom. It will be a bit of a culture shock going back to under-the-enlarger manipulations after the near infinite control of the software.

Life would be easier for me as a film photographer if I took a different type of photograph. Street and walkabout photography is much easier to print than landscapes. I footered about on the computer with these scans and it would be difficult to reproduce some of the effects in the darkroom.

These were all taken with a 28-105 Nikkor on an F90x - quite a good combination for this sort of car-based photography. I didn't venture far from the motor and two of the photographs were actually shot from the driver's seat. I'm definitely getting lazier!

Speaking of cars, I'm gutted that my old Mazda MX5 Gleneagles looks to be on its way to the great Stelvio Pass in the sky. It's been off the road for about two years. I had a minor prang in it which coincided with me leaving my job. I didn't need a car on a daily basis so just left it in the drive.

A few months ago I thought about putting it back on the road but it failed its MOT because of some rust in the sills just ahead of the rear wheel arches. If you know Mk1 MX5s then you'll know that this is a common failing on these cars.

I put it in to a garage to have the bodywork all sorted out but got back the bad news that the rear of the car inboard of the wings is quite rotten and would require extensive welding. It's not economically viable to have all that work done so that looks like curtains for the Mazda. It's a real shame since these cars are bullet proof mechanically and mine is no exception. 

The Gleneagles was a limited edition of a few hundred. There can't be that many still roadworthy as the weak bodywork always seems to kill them off. If only Mazda had put as much effort into designing and building the bodywork as they put into honing the driving characteristics.

Anyway, back to the photography. The pics on this page were easy to produce in Lightroom but all but the shot of the ploughed field covered in fleece are likely to require a fair bit of time under the enlarger to get right. My favourite is the first one. I went back to check out this view when the snow had cleared and there isn't a pic there at all now.

The last pic is a shot of a WWII pill box sitting alone and neglected on a hill. There are usually sheep milling around but they were enjoying a feed round the back at the time. The sheep help to make the photo but I got fed up waiting for them to make an appearance. It was also blowing a gale and quite cold so I packed it in and headed for home.

I'll probably go back again for another try but will take my old Tamron SP 300mm f5.6 lens with me. The closer you get to the scene, the closer you become to the pill box's elevation. I think the pic would be better from further back where the land rises a little. The compression effect of the telephoto would also help to tie tree and the pill box together.

The pill box makes an appearance in the pic immediately below as well. I liked the progression from large shed to pill box to telecoms aerial - all a bit incongruous. It's funny the things that catch your eye when driving in the countryside.

Poles Apart

Is it possible to characterise a nation by its photography? I'm beginning to wonder if that is indeed the case. I think I can identify American landscape photographs and street photography. Likewise, there's a sort of  European look to some photographs and sometimes I see a certain "Britishness". For whatever reason (I've never really thought a lot about it) I've always seemed to prefer European photography to work from American or the Far East. I prefer browsing the photographs on Ipernity rather than Flickr. Obviously, there are plenty of exceptions that would blow this tentative theory apart.

I started to think about this after realising that I love Polish photography. Even just making a statement like that is a little weird but there are times when I see a type of photography I really like, do a bit of digging and then realise that the photographer is Polish. Unless you see the world the same way I do it's unlikely you would have reacted the same way. It's more to do with the fact that I seem to take the same sort of photographs as some Polish black and white workers, and vice-versa.

Just recently, reader Gracjan Ziółek left a comment on one of my posts and, since there was a link in his profile to his website, I decided to take a look, as I always try to do. Well, he's Polish and, true to form, I loved the stuff he was producing. Of course, it helps that he uses a lot of film. I asked if it was OK to show some of his pics here and that prompted this post.

Turns out that Gracjan has a bit of a track record. He was a university photography teacher for three years and his photographs have featured in solo and group exhibitions in Poland, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Austria, Spain, Slovenia and Japan. He has also had a lot of photographs published and is a past-president of the Lublin Branch of the Polish Nature Photographers' Union.

When I said how much I liked his work and asked for his permission to post some pics here he said, "I'm very happy to read such words and they motivate me to get back to photography. For last 2-3 years because of some family/personal reasons I gave up a little, but now I'm starting to build a darkroom in my new house and planning to come back. So I hope there will be much more new posts in my blog this year."

Gracjan moved into a new house in the New Year and has obviously been busy but he's pushing ahead with the darkroom plan. He added, "I have an idea how the darkroom should look like (I was teaching darkroom techniques at the university for few years and had my own darkroom there), so as soon as my wife is more or less satisfied with the progress of work, I hope to find some time to buy materials and assemble sinks, tables, cabinets etc."

I asked him if he could document his darkroom build but I think he might have enough on his plate already!

Raki, Fish and Kemenche

By Omar Ozenir

http://geldurkal.blogspot.co.uk/

It was late evening, the light was low, my lens opened up to max f/4.0, but I could not remain indifferent to this merry dinner on the Black Sea coast. The good mood peaked after a while – not least due to the raki* and the kemenche** - and the group proceeded to dance the horon***.

The willingness to share one’s meal with a complete stranger is deeply embedded in Turkish culture. Although I was invited to the table, I declined in order to be able to concentrate on photography.

Whilst printing this frame my thoughts wandered away from the evening's memory to something else. Let me share part of the contact print first:

I exposed this roll six years ago and back then I printed the frame marked with red. Yet after some deliberation I decided it wasn’t a good photograph and chucked the print into my archive without any further analysis. A few weeks ago I took out the contact sheet from my files again, and whilst having another good look was very intrigued by the frame right after the marked one (number 17). It looked much better to my eye.

How had I missed it? In this series of pictures my eye looks for something that provides coherence, a focal point, where it can rest after having wandered around. In frame 17, the raised head of the man with the kemenche and his smile provide this focus. In frame 16 on the other hand, the dialogue between the men on either side of the kemenche player had induced me to print the photo in the first place, but later on I decided that this wasn’t good enough to carry the picture. Anyway, after this new discovery I recently printed the top photo.

Which brings me to the point I want to make. When I’m out photographing with someone who’s using digital I often encounter the following scenario: “Hey, card’s full (because it hasn’t been emptied for months?), let me quickly do a little clean-up”. When I see that, I always think about those poor pictures that aren’t given a chance.

Isn’t is possible that after a year, five years, fifteen years, as the photographer’s understanding of the medium evolves, he/she would have looked at and evaluated those photos with a different pair of eyes? Had I not used film for this photo, exposed 160 instead of 16 frames with a digital camera, deleted half of them within half an hour, marked frame 16 as important and saved the rest in a dark corner of a hard drive, would I have the chance and – maybe more importantly – the willpower to return and have another glance at those “not good enough” pictures after several years? What about the deleted ones? 

Longtime followers of my blog will have realised that I almost never use the word "digital". Because on one hand I don’t want to get caught up in unnecessary polarisations (I hope this won't happen here) and comparisons, on the other hand I don’t want to lose focus, which is film based photography and the darkroom. Still, I can’t help but ponder on digital photography’s slogan “shoot as much as you want, delete the bad ones” and the very high probability of an ensuing lack of discipline.

The photograph and contact sheet I’ve shown here made me realise once again that what’s considered as the weakness of film photography can actually be one of it’s greatest strengths.

The picture’s darkroom story:

Bronica RF645 medium format camera, 65mm lens. I developed Ilford HP5+ in D76 (1+1) for 13 minutes.

The print is on fibre-based Ilford Multigrade IV. First, to have an idea where I was, I looked at the image of the neg on the easel and thought “Hmm, 20 seconds at grade 3?”. I placed a small strip over the picture’s heart (I’m very very frugal these days…paper is expensive!) and gave it a 20 second exposure. After being dried in the microwave:

Not a bad guess. It wants slightly more exposure. Maybe a tiny bit higher contrast as well? OK, two more test strips are in order. One will receive 22 seconds at grade 3, the other 11 seconds at grade 3 followed with 11 seconds at grade 3.5, in other words 22 seconds at grade 3.25. I do try to get the basic exposure and contrast right. Again, after being microwaved:

The left one is grade 3.25, the right one grade 3. It may not be very obvious due to surface reflections, but 22 seconds at grade 3 looks fine.

Let’s do a straight print:

As I guessed, the photograph gets lighter from left to right, because the half-open space was receiving light from the right. OK, I’ll have to give the right side more exposure. Similarly, the table wants more tone. What about the right background? That area is a mess; especially the white sheet pulls the eye straight to itself.

I did a couple of further tests which I won’t show here. These helped me to zero in on the burning-in exposures. To darken the white sheet in the background I used two L shaped pieces of cardboard. With these I can create rectangles of any size for burn-ins:

Eventually, I cooked the final print as shown in the diagram below.

The main exposure was 22 seconds at grade 3.

1. Graduated darkening of the right side by giving additional 11 seconds to the right of the red line. A piece of cardboard was moved back and forth.

2. Additional 11 seconds below the blue line, using my hand.

3. Additional 7 seconds to the top of the frame with a straight piece of cardboard. Further 7 seconds to the top left, using my hand again.

4. For the white sheet (within the green frame) I opened up the lens 2 stops and gave the area 50 additional seconds at grade 1, using the L shaped cartons.

5. Finally, further 7 seconds to the top right.

I think about my dodge/burn exposures in terms of percentages. This helps me to visualise tonal changes better. In this case 11 seconds is 50% of the main exposure, 7 seconds is about 30% of the main exposure.

The wet print on 30x40cm fibre-based Ilford MGIV:

The tray is labelled “fix” but actually contains water. I try to use tongs and not stick my fingers into the chemicals.


*Raki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rak%C4%B1

**Kemenche: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kemenche

***Horon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horon_(dance)

Horon to a kemenche tune: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wG9F0UHHgs

Another Day, Another Darkroom - Part Two

Here's where I'm at right now - not a lot of progress from the first post. It's the Easter holiday and I can't find the time to spend on important matters because of the demands of family! I've fixed the 500mm drawer unit to the far corner and that's where the Durst will be remaining. The enlarger head hits the sloping ceiling before it reaches the top of the column but that would only be a problem when making giant prints - not something I'll be doing.

It's a solid platform for what is a very heavy enlarger but I'm going to fix a bracket to the wall and tie in the top of the column as well for extra rigidity. The 500mm unit at the bottom left of the frame is where the V35 will be going.

You can see the Leitz poking is pretty little head out from beneath the 400mm wide worktop between the two enlarger stations. It's occupying the space where I'll be sitting when footering with cameras, reading, doing repairs or spotting prints. Either side of the kneehole will be open shelves for storing the paraphernalia associated with the darkroom such as measuring cylinders and jugs, dev tanks, thermometer, chemicals, etc.

The next step is to fix the V35 unit to the wall, cut the MDF for the shelves and screw everything together. Then I'll turn my attention to the other side of the darkroom.

Hexar Landscapes

It's been in and out of my "things to sell on Ebay" list more often than a fiddler's elbow but it's still here. Looks like the Hexar AF isn't going anywhere soon. It's earned its place in my camera bag because of its outstanding fixed 35mm f2 lens. In common with the Zeiss lenses on the Contax, it produces negatives that just seem to have something about them: a crispness and character that's very nice indeed.

I'm also coming to terms with its vague viewfinder - something I've moaned about often enough in the past. It's a cross you have to bear when using rangefinder-type cameras. If I want the Hexar's lens I have to put up with the Hexar, simple as that.

It's not usually thought of as a landscape camera but I had it with me the other week when I was out with the Contax outfit shooting some gritty and bleak scenes. There were no surprises as far as framing is concerned when I reviewed the Agfa APX 100 negs so I must be getting used to the viewfinder. Exposure was good in most of the frames. When there was a lot of snow about I used the Hexar's exposure compensation buttons to dial in about one-and-a-half stops of over-exposure. I've found that whilst +2 stops might be needed where the snow is sunlit, in the dull, overcast conditions in which I was shooting, +1 to +1.5 stops is plenty.

The film was developed in Spur Acurol-N, a developer that was sent to me for review by the manufacturers. I'm just feeling my way with it and will write up my impressions later. Don't read too much into the pics in this post as they've been breathed on in Photoshop, a necessary evil given my scanning abilities (or lack thereof) and the fact that I'm darkroomless for the time being.

The photographs do give a good impression of the Angus countryside around my Carnoustie home for most of the year, however. Temperatures hovered around 0-3C for a few months and it was quite miserable - especially since our boiler packed up and we were without heating on and off for about five weeks. It was lovely to see the temperature "soaring" to 8C today and the sun poked out from behind the clouds for quite lengthy spells as well. I narrowed my eyes, concentrated hard and tried to pretend I was in the South of France. It didn't work.