Short report

Been a bit busy the last couple of days, as you might understand.
Yesterday was the big drive-stuff-away-day, with the big advantage that the basement again is an area where it's possible to get inside. We have been throwing things away, you see. Preparing for the next step, to put it that way. If we wish to get away from this house and into something else some day, we need to get rid of stuff. That's why we're selling a few things, giving away a bit more and throws away a lot. It's absolutely insane when you look at the pile of stuff nobody wants. A lot of it is actually there because you thought it was a good idea at some point, to put it aside for someone else to pick up when they needed the thing. Well, they never did and probably never will. Luckily we have managed to find new homes to quite a lot, which I do feel good about. 

A darkroom print of "Mary's Church" made a few days ago. This one was snapped in Bergen a few weeks back using the old rangefinder with a yellow filter and 35mm lens attached. Ilford FP4 film developed in Rodinal 1:25, printed on Ilford Classic FB paper 5"x7". 

Among a pile of children toys being spread around near and far there was this dolls bed. Not big, but not very small either. I thought I just break it into pieces and throw it inside the fireplace to get rid of it that way, but the girls had put it into the pile of "giveaway/sell" stuff, so it was put into the wife's hands to organize that. Lots of stuff went hither and thither, but this dolls bed was standing there in the corner kind of forgotten. A bit late in the evening when everything else had been picked up, one father of a 3-4 years old girl suddenly called telling my wife that his daughter could not sleep because of this actual dolls bed. The father and his daughter had seen a snap of it on some fb page a bit earlier in the day, and the girl just could not forget about it. She had this little doll, and now the little thing was not able to sleep because she did not have a bed, and of course the little girl could not sleep either because her little doll was staying awake. 
So what can you possibly do? The dolls bed found it's way inside the car, and off the wife went with the thing. Came back home about half an hour later with tears in here eyes and everything, and the feeling of having done something small but important to someone. Made it worth to take a step back and think, actually.

And hey, while posting prints from Bergen anyway, what about this one? I took a short detour inside this from the outside looking very nice café or restaurant called Roll&Rock, and found this fantastic interior which I just had to waste a few frames of FP4 on. And while standing there trying to make everything fit inside the view of the 21mm lens this waitress came by in a hurry trying to get the customers inside another part of the place served. I just had to do what I usually never will, so I stopped her for a few seconds so I could snap the full scene. I guess you see what I mean... She was more than happy to stop for a few seconds, as you obviously will be when someone suddenly throw a 1960's rangefinder up inside a place like this. It's a bit of a weird snap with a hugely overexposed background there up against the window, but that's what you get when trying to save the best of most of the interior. I think I was down to 1/15s or maybe even 1/8s on this one, so I'm quite surprised it turned out as sharp as I could ever hope for. That's the kind of sacrifice you have to make when turning up with the wrong type of film stuck inside your camera. Darkroom print on the usual Ilford Classic FB paper.

And then I finally made it inside the darkroom a few days ago. Made a few prints of which you see a few examples posted today, but nothing great I'm afraid. 
They came out more like tests prints again, but maybe there's a couple I could try to do some further work on some day. The master plan was to try get a decent print of one of my latest weather snaps, but there's more work to be done before I can call that plan pulled off. Strange contrasts and things inside those snaps, which calls out for some extra work to be done, I think. Bleach is certainly one thing that comes to mind, but I got nothing inside the house to get something like that done right now. Is there someone out there having trying to bleach parts of a print before and at the same time willing to share some information or good links about the matters? I have been watching a few things over at youtube, and might try to follow something along one of the lines I found there. I would need to get some to me new chemicals though.

A print from the tour around my hometown a couple of weeks ago. Pushed Ilford PAN400 (1600 ASA) developed in Rodinal, printed on Ilford Classic FB paper before dried and then scanned. The usual treatment, as you know. I liked the silhouette effect of this lamp towards that boring sky we had that day, and I kind of like some of that negative space sort of thing happening up there on the upper right side of this print. There's also something about the lines in here that made it worth to print in my opinion. I might be the only one though...

And then there's the great World Championship of Chess going on over in New York and all. They broadcast every moment of it live on Norwegian television these days, as our own Magnus Carlsen is trying his best to keep his world champion title for another couple of years. I don't play the game myself, but I must say I think it's brilliant entertainment when they make such great live TV out of it, as they actually have managed to do the last couple of times the championship has been going on. 
The backside of it all is of course the fact that it has made me awake for too long a couple of nights.