mandag 29. august 2016

Seen the dark a bit, lately

Finally I made it to the darkroom, if only for a brief moment or three. There are things to be done, as you know, and places to see as well. 
This weekend we went away to the island of Smøla again, and it was a very nice trip. Brought the sister and the mother in law this time, which was very nice indeed. 
Even managed to visit the brilliant artist Kari, who grew up on more or less the same spot where I used to go fishing back in the days. I never had too much time to go see the folks down on that farm back in the days, but I did this weekend. You see she's an artist these days when she's not working on all kinds of other projects, and I want to have something she has made on one of my walls somewhere. You will see, some day, I hope. We have even briefly discussed the possibility of a sort of cooperation by throwing something together for next summer. Things to hang on walls, you know. I am not too sure yet... 

I kind of liked this print. I don't like the scan, though. There's too much going on in the sky there, and on the far left side where the sea is. The print does not contain too much of that rubbish, and looks even more graphic than the scan. More black and white only, with not much gray if you see what I mean. I wanted it to be like that, I need to hurry to say. Everything else looks quite OK, I think. 

Ah, the darkroom session you might ask?
Well, it was a session with a plan. At least it started off like that.
Then I went in there, and threw the plan somewhat away. As you normally do when you find yourself inside a dark place like that. 
Anyway, I ended up with a few prints. A couple of them were actually rather nice if you take a close look at them in daylight. The scans are just that... scans. 

We found this on our travel to Bulandet about a week ago. Someone had ripped the wheelhouse off an old fishing boat and put it aside for it to get some patina, or something. It seems to work, anyway. I had to stop, as you might understand. This was done on Fomapan 100 film on the Rolleiflex, washed the film in some kind of HC-110 mixture and made a couple of prints. This one is on warm tone Ilford FB paper. I might find a place for it, somewhere.

I printed the bigger ones on Ilford warm tone fibre paper. The only reason for that was that I have run out of the more normally toned, or not toned at all, paper of the same quality. Or not completely run out either, but there was no more of that size anyway. I got a bunch of bigger stuff, but I did not like to start cutting away on that batch. Not yet, anyway. That day will come soon enough anyway.

Bog Cotton, Eriphorum, Cottongrass or Myrull. You may call it lots of stuff, but it's usually the same thing. It's nice anyway, and looks great in the wind we usually gets around this bits of the world. This was snapped on the Rolleiflex, and the print was made on warm tone Ilford FB paper. It's going to show up on somebody's wall at some point, I have heard. 

So, I printed the Bog Cotton from the 6x6 negative I posted a few days ago, together with a couple of other 6x6 negatives this day. I like to print from 120 film I must admit. They got a nice size about them, and they seem to fit my eyes a bit better than the old 135 format. Another thing is that the enlarger I use for 120 film is a bit easier to get to than the beast I use for 135 film. Bad excuse, I know.

4 kommentarer:

  1. I think if I had my own darkroom I'd shoot more 120. It feels like the perfect format to do myself from one end to the other.

    SvarSlett
    Svar
    1. It really is, Jim, a perfect format to play around with inside the darkroom and other places as well. The obvious backside of it all is the size of the cameras, but you get a few quite bearable ones as well. I have grown into liking the TLR's, as you might have found out.
      As you might also know, I don't have a dedicated darkroom either. I had plans for one, and even started building it last year, but stopped it due to some other plans we got for the house. When got things the way we both want them I will definitely get my own darkroom. Nowadays I'm pretty much holding up the whole bathroom when I have something to produce, which is very far from ideal in every meaning of the word.
      120 film is great because of the negative size around four times the size of a 135 negative, and of course because you don't need any special equipment to handle them. It's all done with the same small bits and bobs you need for developing and handle a roll of 135.

      Slett
  2. Very nice prints, Roy. Even more so given the tear-up and tear-down nature of your darkroom. I know all about plans - even make some myself from time to time. And you are correct - sometimes the plan gets lost once you get into the darkroom and see what is happening. But that's OK if at the end of the day you get something you like out of it all. Like here.

    SvarSlett
    Svar
    1. Thanks a lot, mate! I just came out of the darkroom again, but today I seem to have brought out crap only. That's just the way it is from time to time :)
      Will probably be a bit better next time then, I hope.

      Slett

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