Archive for January 2012
Three from today
Weston Beach, Pan-F, Rodinal
I know I’ve been away aq bit, just been very busy at work. This weekend I was able to catch up on some scanning, and these three images were the favorites from that session.
HP5, Xtol, BVW Class, Oct 2010
And, then this one, shot just yesterday and developed last night as a test of HP5 in HC-110 (H)
HP5, HC-110 (H), Processed a bit in Silver Efex
More to come
Hazy Summertime
Pan-F, HC-1120 (H)
Scanning away here and came across a roll I shot with my Mamiya around July or so. It might have been in August, I honestly can’t rermember. I’ll post a few images from that roll in the next day or so. That day was hot and hazy, humid in that Western-PA sort of way. This is the point at which the Beaver River flows into the Ohio. The railroad bridge crosses over the point.
I worked on the image to try and capture that feeling, but seeing it on the web page leaves me feeling I missed it somehow.
More to come.
Catching up on my Scanning
HP5, DD-X
Continuing to catch up on my scans while I’m on vacation. It will end far too soon.
Getting Ready for What Comes
HP5, DD-X, toned in Silver Efex
Happy New Year to everyone, and thanks for your feedback on the theme. A theme has been chosen (you should be looking at it right now), and we are still in the process of migrating everything over and setting up the true landing page.
I thought that rather than setting goals for 2012, it might be more revealing to review, from my perspective, what I think I learned last year.
Film
The biggest shift this year was the inclusion of two Kodak films in my regular shooting regimen: Plus-x and Tri-X. I don’t know why it took me so long to truly see what these films had to offer other than to just assume that my historical influences kept me from really considering the options (my film teacher loved FP4 back in the day). I remember talking to Ray about HP5 and how I loved the contrast. He replied “yup, but once you have it, it’s not easy to get rid of.” And, indeed, once I started to shoot a lot with Tri-X, what I loved about it was the more gentle approach to drawing the scene. Who would have thought? And now, of course, Ilford is doing well, business-wise, and Kodak is going down the tube. Sheesh. Not that I don’t like FP4 and HP5, mind, it’s just that timing is everything. And I’ve spent enough time pulling Plus-X that I have feeling for how it looks. Now I need to replay those experiments with FP4.I’m just hoping that when Kodak sells off its film business, someone buys it who can continue with it.
My tests with older-style films have been a mixed bag. Fomapan turned out well, I’m going to try it in medium format, but my two rolls of Adox 25 were developed at grossly inadequate times (those times were gotten from MDC) and are extremely thin. I haven’t tried scanning them yet, so they may be salvage-able. We’ll see.
Rollei Retro holds great promise, but I think I need a different developer besides D-76. My two rolls of Rollei Blackbird were totally fogged and useless. I suspect I know when they got fogged, but I’ll never be certain.
I like the old-style films because they move further away from a digital look. The more I can find a style and look of my own, the better.
I’ll talk about developers in the next post.
Today’s Image
This image was from a portrait shoot for a client last year, and was a candid shot I caught on film while they were prepping. The main shoot was captured on my 5D.
