Stones - Mispillion River - Milford, Delaware - 2009 (work print)

Stones - Mispillion River - Milford, Delaware - 2008 (work print)

Technical Gobbledygook:

Neopan 400
HC110b for 6'00" at 20C

Nikon N75 w/ 35-80 zoom
No exposure recorded

Printed on Orient Seagull RC-VC II 8x10 glossy
Enlarger used: Fujimoto Lucky 60M (Little Boy)
Enlarger Height 20"
Aperture f/11
Exposure time 22 seconds
Controls: Dodging for the last six seconds of exposure.
I used a 4x5 film holder and slid in from the right to reach the left side at exposure stop time.

This is admittedly a work print.  I have the shadows exactly where I want them.  I want to bring the highlights up a zone or two.  I plan on adjusting development time.  The shadows come in after 15 seconds.  The print is fully developed after 60.  This is an exposure factor of four.  Since the highlights take longer to develop I plan on reducing the exposure factor to, at first, 3.5 (53 seconds?).  By pulling the print early the highlights do not have the opportunity to become as dense as they are at 60 seconds developing time.  If I am still not happy with that I will pull it at EF3, 45 seconds.  We will see where we are at that point but I am hopeful that this will succeed.

Felt good to be back in the dark after all this time.  And here is what I done.  I hope you all like it.

Fat Man and Little Boy Ride Again

It has been almost three and a half years.  Three and a half years since I have had the darkroom set up.  Three and a half years since coming to the realization that having the camera gear and not using it was making me feel guilty right in the middle of getting through Faith's death.  Three and a half years since I sold all of my camera gear.  Fortunately, no one bought the darkroom gear and I knew I would eventually set things up again so I stored it away.

For right now.  Wednesday I rearranged the old bedroom to provide an empty wall against which I placed the entire contents of my walk-in closet.  I then set the darkroom up.  Thursday I got it up and running, test gear and such.  Today, I discovered a very fortunate and unforeseen choice.  I covered the window on the front of the house with an old dark red bed sheet.  It is folded three times and stapled to the sill.

When I went in today to make sure the room was light tight I noticed two things.  First, the curtain with the bright and direct afternoon sun on it made a red safelight for the whole room.  Secondly, It was REALLY bright in there.  So I ran a test strip to test for fogging.  With the lights out and only the red from the window, I exposed a cut strip of photographic paper a section at a time.  5 minutes, 2 minutes, and three more sections for one minute.  This way I had a test strip that had been exposed for 10-5-3-2-1 minutes and depending on where the paper showed it was getting darker would be the time limit that the paper could be out in the room before the light in the room, what there was, would fog the paper.

Don't you know, there was nothing on the paper at all?  Safe for at least 10 minutes out in the open.

Tomorrow is Sunday and tomorrow I get back into the pool.  I have selected the first negative I am going to print.  It is a copy of an old print of a friend's mother on her motorcycle.  I did not know if it would work when I took the photographs five years ago.  But I found them in the inside over of my negative book and put the best looking one into the enlarger.  When I focused it the negative image looked really good.  Good enough to try.  My initial fear had been that the negative would not be sharp enough to do any meaningful work with.  But looking at it, it has great tonal range and it looked very sharp in focus.  Definitely worth a go.  Hope it turns out well.

My intent is to finally get back into photography wholesale.  I was rereading an old Black and White Photography magazine from the UK.  A favorite columnist, Mike Johnston, was writing about his own version at the time of the Photography Blues.  He said something that I may never now forget.  "Photography is not something you think about.  It is something you do."  Well, for at least seven and a half years I have done MUCH MORE thinking about photography than doing.  Time to live up to a favorite movie quote.  "Get busy livin' or get busy dyin'."

Time to live.

Beauty Behind The Storm

So, I have ten rolls of film I never got around to developing before. So a couple hours ago I go upstairs to load a couple rolls onto spools so I won't have to when I decide to process them.  Well, I went this far...

So I says to myself, let's just do it.  Now, mind you, I have never successfully loaded a roll of 135 in my life. Tonight I nailed it. Glad I did. A roll of 120 as well.  TMY-2, T-Max 400, both rolls.  I mix up some chems, the dev was HC110, dil B.  I decide to give N+1 due to the age of the film.  I soup the 120 first. A couple frames of my brother burning stuff at Mom and Dad's and some landscape from Prime Hook, typical stuff for me.

Then I soup the 35mm. I inspect the negs. Only about ten frames. I see it is, again landscapes. But I can't place it. I see the last frame. Bright and blurry in the center. Hmm, that almost has to be running water...

Faith died April 2011. In October that year, I almost talk myself out of going to meet fellow APUGer Lee from Dayton for a photo hike. My brother invites himself along. Now I gotta go. I was having a very bad few days and shortly thereafter is when I decide to put the cameras down.

Yeah, I just processed the Rickett's Glen negs. I can hardly wait to see the beauty that came from a very bad day for me.  I would pull an all nighter right now to print and see the images. That's what the 12 year old in me is screaming for.

Well, sometimes the 44 year old wins.  I'll post some pics when I get them.

Project: Dachau

A customer of mine and I spoke a couple of years ago about printing some enlargements from some negatives made by his wife's uncle in Europe in the 40's. He was attached to the forces who first entered the Dachau camp in Poland, IIRC. He warned me that some of the subject matter is on the graphic side, documentary in nature, but bald, no sugar coating.

Today he was in and I broached the subject of photography. He asked if I could work with old negatives. I asked if he meant the Dachau negs. Then he remembered we had talked. He will be bringing in the negs and I will make some contact prints so he can see what there is and how, if at all, he might wish to proceed, you know, what to do with them.

I remember when we had first spoken that the scope of what I had agreed to hit me. The enormity of what could be and the respect with which I needed to approach the subject matter were and still are foremost in my mind.  I do not doubt I can do the negatives justice. I look forward to the work.  And I will definitely keep updates here as they come to me.

Squaring Shadow Up and Film Holder Notching System

Well, the Calumet showed up at the store in the post this past Monday.  It's beautiful. I know the camera's name was going to be Ellie. That changed. I'll touch on that below. At any rate, I'm going to have the shutter CLA'd in a mo. That's how the magic happens.h or two. Works fine, just has some serious lag at 1/2 and one full second. The camera moves smoothly. The Schneider Kreuznach Symmar  f/5.6 180mm lens has some minor dust. So, I have me some cleaning to do.

I got the camera from Barry Dial of Bennington, NH. He is a fellow APUGer (WWW.apug.com) and really hooked me up with this deal.  About $700.00 of camera and glass for $300.00.

So, I have spent today watching my son's gift to me, Duck Dynasty Season 1, and taking care of some loose ends. I have been making my exposure log sheets, more on that later. Also, I have been notching my film holders. Here's how I do it. On the bottom of the holder is an edge the folds out when you remove the darkslide so you can put the film in.

Here's what I do. The film notches go on the bottom left. On the bottom right I measure over a quarter inch and cut in a notch where light will pass through it and expose the film further up from the edge so you can see these notches on the negative. Then I put a series of notches inside of that marker notch that is on each holder. Each notch, depending on its location in relation to the marker, indicates a numeric value to 'number' the holder. A notch 1/4" left of the marker denotes '1'. 1/2" to the left is a '2'. 3/4" is a '4'. 1" is an '8' and so on.  Holder number 1 has the first notch cut out. Holder number 6 has the second and third notch cut out, leaving the first one blank. The second notch is '2' and the third one is a '4'. 2+4=6. Holder number 13 will have the first, third and fourth notches cut leaving number two blank. 1+4+8=13.

Mostly, just enjoying quiet day after this holiday season. Today is Dad's birthday. He died last March from dymensia. So, it's just a nice day to bum around and do what I want to for the day. Hope you have had a great holiday. Keep on clickin'.

Oh, and why did i name it Shadow? Brought home the camera Monday night after work and found myself singing 'Me and my shadow...'  

Camera Kit Shaping Up

Well, my 4x5 kit is beginning to take shape.  Fellow APUGer, Barry (bdial), has been kind enough to offer a camera and lens to get me going.  Not without recompense, mind you.

Meet Ellie.

Ellie is a Calumet 4x5 with a rotating back so that both horizontally and vertically negatives can be exposed without needing to rotate the entire camera 90 degrees in either direction.  It will be accompanied by...

...a Symmar 180mm f/5.6 lens mounted on a Compur shutter.  180mm in 4x5 roughly translates to a normal 45mm lens in 35mm format photography.  In the coming weeks I will sink some more into some good glass for the front of this beauty.  I will be looking for something in the 90-120mm range.  I do not believe I am going to concern myself with a longer lens immediately unless a deal to good to pass up crosses my path.  In LF photography, as long as the bellows are light tight and the movements are smooth, the camera is just a camera.  You get your image with great film, spot on exposure and killer glass.  And the glass is where my investment will go.

I have five old film holders that need some work.  I will need to get some leatherette to breathe new life into them.  But this is certainly doable.  I have my Soligor 1 degree spot meter.  I would not be caught dead without a spot meter in large format photography, or any photography for that matter.  Sometimes you simply need to know and a spot meter if used properly will not let you down.

I have my tripod, given to me by my sister-in-law, Lyn, for Christmas three years ago (Hi, Beautiful Sister).  It should be more than enough to provide good stability for Ellie.  I will be carting everything around in an old army framed backpack.  Huge central storage and bunches of pockets for odds and ends.

I do have a few things I will need to pickup to round out the kit.  Once I have the lenses, I will pick up...

a good Cokin 'P' filter set, focusing primarily on contrast, Pol and ND filters
a good cable release
a few more film sheet holders
some Ilford sheet film
a hard case to carry the lenses, filters and the film holders
a big changing bag
a focusing cloth
a focusing loupe (10x)

I know there is more but this will do for a start.

New Google Community: Delmarva Darkroom

Just a heads up.

Delmarva Darkroom

Hope to build a local network of wet process photographers.