torsdag 14. april 2016

A night in the Dark

Finally, yesterday evening I suddenly just got on my feet and into the car. Drove off for home to go visit my enlargers, blind off the bathroom and pour some developer and fix into the small set of containers. I got a large set as well, but I wanted to do various 5x7" things, and the small ones are great for that sort of thing. 
I did only medium format stuff, mind you, because that was the containment of the folder I first pulled out. 
I struggled a lot. Not with all of the negatives, but there was a couple of real tricky ones. I found out later, out of the dark and into the fluorescent light thing in the kitchen, that I will need to revisit a couple of them quite soon. There was something there in the shadows I did not care for, at all. All too muddy, or whatever it was. I will see if I might be able to do some corrections. Saturday, I guess, will be the day. 

A triplet at sea. UK waters, as you might guessed. It's the "Bruce" field, which contains a complex structure of three different reservoirs I have been told. D (drilling) platform in the center, PUC (process, utilities, quarters) to the right, and finally the CR (no idea what that would mean, but it's used for compression of gas) which was added at a later stage. 
This is not one of yesterdays prints, mind you, as they are still back home and in the process of drying right now. Nikon FM2 with a Nikkor lens. Could be the old 50mm f/1.4 thing.

There's a few issues having a darkroom you need to set up, and dismantle, each time you want to use it. As one would know. The issue with time is a big one, but also the fact that there will be tools missing when you need them, and a bunch of different other small annoying things. 
Another one of them annoying thing is that because it's an issue to set it all up, you get a bit rusty between each time you actually pull yourself together and go in there. I also want to make all sorts of notes of things I do on each print. To make it a lot easier to reproduce it at a later stage, should you be lucky enough to make something close to half decent. 

Same rigs, different view. The center D one of the three would be hidden behind the PUC one. They are compact units, don't you think? 

I don't know how you do your prints, because there's a number of ways to get from a white sheet of paper over to an exposed and printed version of the same thing. 
I have been known to choose one grade of contrast level, and print from that. I did that for a few in yesterdays session as well, but went over to try some split grade printing, using only the highest and lowest settings on my enlarger. That's 00 and 5, if anyone like to know. That helped me through one of the tricky negs yesterday, but I did not have the urge to try it for the worst one... as the time was 4 in the morning by this point. So, I need to revisit and see if split grade will be the thing for that neg as as well. Maybe it will, or maybe not. 
We shall see... hopefully some time very late Saturday.

2 kommentarer:

  1. Yep, I'm a split grade kind of gal. Although my prints yesterday [tulip] were at grade 5 all the time because I wanted a gritty look.
    Look forward to seeing your prints.

    SvarSlett
    Svar
    1. I would love to get some kind of "hands on" guidance on split grade printing one day. I was kind of pleased with the results I got, but I'm not 100% sure why it went out well, and not even sure what I did either... to be totally honest.
      Prints will be scanned and posted some time this evening, I hope :)

      Slett

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