Nikkor 50mm, FP4, Xtol
This is not the greatest image in the universe, but it’s a scan from the first few frames of a roll of FP4 I developed in Xtol yesterday.
These images combined with an ongoing email conversation I’ve been having with a reader of the blog has made me think again about some of my work in the Experiment. Details coming tomorrow.
Interesting just for kicks to compare tonality to the last post, captured on Tri-X and developed in FG7.
Paul Butzi's Warm Tone, FP4, FG7, Zeiss Biogon
My walking around camera during the day in SF was my Bessa R2a loaded with either FP4 or HP5. I did this mainly because of weight, the Bessa plus the M-mount Biogon fits nicely into my bag. The lovely benefit was that I knew I had just purchased a new bottle of FG7 recently from Freestyle (my favorite film supplier). I hadn’t developed anything in Fg7 since I had run out last April; too long, it seems.
My good friend Paul Lester had encouraged me to try Rodinal, and Rodinal indeed worked great for many images, but since I didn’t have any FG7 around, it was hard to compare. The image above is Ilford Fp4, exposed at ISO 80, developed in FG7 (this is combo in which I was trained back at Montclair State in NJ). When the negs came out of the soup, they had the look I had long grown to love, and so I had to scan some today. One of the images on the roll was the one above.
Paul, sorry, gotta say that for 35mm film, FG7 still has my heart. The crisp images and long tonality plus tight grain just really works for me. Below you can see a 100% blow up of a portion of the image above:
Look ma, almost no grain
Now, I don’t mind grain, but this combo of crispness and almost grain-free I like quite a bit. There is even a version of FG7 where you can get less grain by adding sodium sulfite. But I’ve never tried it.
The main benefit of FG7 is that it is a compensating developer, meaning that it continues development of the shadows while it holds detail in the highlights. The image below is a great example: the top of the waterfall was, by my meter, more than 10 stops brighter than the shadows below. But in this image (the neg is not yet cleaned of dust, sorry) there is still detail in the sunlit portion of the top and clear detail in the watery shadows below.
And, oh, just by the way, I changed my drying procedure and had almost no dust at all. This developing session left me with smiles all around.
FP4, Rodinal
This image is from that roll (boy I was all around Allegheny County with that roll, eh?) The angle of the sun and the angle of the flag and the starkness of the image are what makes this work for me.
FTb, Rodinal, Toning in PS3
This is image #2 from that roll is discussed in yesterday’s post. I shot about six different frames of this window, looking for the right balance of exposure between the wall and the light coming through the window. I really didn’t do anything fancy to this in Lightroom in terms of exposure balance, just cleaned it up and toned it in PS.
FP4, Rodinal
Yesterday I scanned in a roll of FP4 I had shot back in February when I came home to Pittsburgh for a visit. One of the really enjoyable things about developing film months after exposing it is that the images have the potential to surprise me. I’m one of those photographers who needs some distance and time from the act of capture to get a sense of what the images could mean and what they could be separated from the expectation of the moment. It always seems to me that when I’m patient about taking a look at the images, a higher percentage of the roll catches my eye than it does when I look at the images right after I shoot them. This roll was no exception; if anything, it proved that rule. Of 35 images, there were four (at least) that surprised me as I looked at them carefully; surprised me in the sense of a kind of out-of-body experience. As in ‘did I take that photo? Really?’
The image above fascinated me. It could have been an accidental exposure; may not have been, since it was right in the middle of the roll, so I wasn’t just casually firing off some frames at the top just to make sure I was past the exposed leader nor was it at the end when I might have been grabbing the last few before I re-wound the roll. But lord knows I have been known to accidentally trip the shutter without meaning to. But there are qualities in the image above that really caught my eye; the abstract nature, the lovely grain; the geometry, and the possibilities inherent in both the out-of-focus horizon as well as the reflection.
There’s also something about this image that screams to me ‘would not feel this way if captured on digital.’
As the days go by this week, I’ll blog the other images from that roll I particularly like. This roll reminded me why I always liked FP4. I don’t think FP4 scans as well as it prints in a traditional darkroom, and so I’ll look forward to printing these images on good old silver gelatin before the end of the year, hopefully.
Also, good news: my replacement 645e arrived, and I shot a test roll of Delta 400, developed it tonight and all seems perfect. I also bought a 45mm lens for it from a local photographer so I now have a 28mm equivalent for it when I take it out for more landscape work.
Lastly, Apple announced their iPad this week, and I fall into the camp of people who are truly excited about the potential for this device as a destination for high-quality digital photo books. I’ll probably get an iPad through work, and I’m thinking of trying to develop for it, if anyone is interested in giving me a hand with such an effort.
From the roll that curls too much
Digital has at least one big advantage over film. At least in Lightroom, that is. All processing in Lightroom is non-destructive processing. B&W conversion, lightening, darkening, whatever, leaves the RAW file untouched. Once the file reaches my hard drive and is backed up, unless I really try hard to screw up, I will always have that original file to go back to.
Not so much in film processing; there, you CAN make irrecoverable errors.
This is not a story of such an error, but rather of a fixable error that I made last week on the first rolls I developed in Rodinal (an image from that roll is above on this page). An error that made me very conscious of how close I can come to really making an irrecoverable error in processing unless I’m more careful.
First, some basics. Film processing goes like this: put film in tank in dark, put cover on tank, turn lights on, develop, stop, fix, wash, hang to dry. There are three steps before the wash: Develop brings forth the latent image on the film; Stop ceases that development; Fix removes the undeveloped silver from the film as well as ‘fixing’ the image to the film in a more permanent fashion. Washing (three washes) removes the fix from the film (if you don’t do this, film or paper will turn brown; you are trying to remove all the fix from the film that you can).
In preparation, I first fill three beakers with these chemicals: one with 600ml of developer (mixing/diluting it first); then 600ml of water (distilled), then 600ml of fix (from a bottle of pre-mixed fixer). The developer and water are thrown away after use, while the fix is poured back into the fixer bottle as that solution can be used over and over again (it eventually depletes and must be thrown away). The developer is almost clear (it has a slight purplish or beige tinge — depending on which developer it is) and developer is pretty close to odorless; the water is, well, water, and the fix is clear but has a peculiar biting odor to it.
As I prep, I also fill beakers with water for the wash. So, when development commences, I have lined up the following beakers left to right: developer, water, fix, water.
Just to reiterate: I develop, throw that away. I stop, throw that away, I fix, pour that back into the bottle in which I store fix, I wash (three separate washes).
In that order.
Let’s talk about fix: you should fix the film for twice the amount of time it takes for a piece of undeveloped film to clear of unexposed silver once you place it in the fix. If fixer is fresh, this is about two minutes (taking about one minute to clear). As fix loses it potency, you’ll be fixing five minutes or even six.
In my normal process, I don’t look at the negs until after I wash for the last time. Then I pull the film off the reels and hang it up.
So, Thursday night I developed my first rolls of FP4 in Rodinal. Friday night I scanned some of those images. Saturday night I developed my second set of rolls (this time some HP5).
Everything was going great Saturday night until I pulled the negs out after the final wash and I snuck a peek. THERE WAS STILL UNDEVELOPED SILVER ON THE NEGS IN ADDITION TO THE DEVELOPED IMAGE. THE ROLLS HAD NOT BEEN FIXED!
Full stop. I put the rolls back into the tank and put the cover back on. I slowly backed up, step by step. I took a whiff of the fix bottle (which, of course, was full since I had poured the fix back in after doing the rolls). Yup smelled like fix. I had left the film in the fixer for the right time, check. I had mixed a new batch only six rolls ago, so I knew I hadn’t gone bad yet.
I went back to my training, where I learned the ‘twice as long as it takes an undeveloped piece of film to clear’ rule. I found the leader I had snipped off the roll. Poured some fixer in a clean beaker. Threw the leader in, and began the timer. It cleared after six minutes. SIX MINUTES instead of one minute. This batch of fixer had somehow become diluted, severely diluted.
Lots of images flashed through my head. The only conclusion I could come to was somehow, on Thursday night, I had poured WATER into the tank when I thought I was pouring FIXER (remember, they look the same: clear). Then returned that solution into the bottle of remaining fixer. That would dilute the fixer. I must’ve poured water into the tank thinking I was pouring fixer. I grabbed the wrong beaker from the ones sitting on the table.
Then, somehow, during one of the wash cycles (I do three), I guessed the first wash cycle, I filled the tank with FIX (wrong beaker again), not water (remember these beakers look the same, clear liquid), vigorously agitated 15-20 times (as you do when you’re using water in your tank to wash), and then poured the FIX down the drain.
The film cleared probably because the FIX was in the tank for 45-60 seconds (most of that vigorously agitated, mind you) but the fixing action is probably not complete, because the film wasn’t immersed in the fix long enough (twice as long as it takes to clear, remember?)
I had to have poured fix into the tank sometime, because the film looked fixed. But water had replaced the fix in the fix storage bottle to dilute it.
So, I have two rolls of FP4, cut up and placed in neg carriers, only partially fixed and ALSO not completely washed (because I used FIX instead of WATER for one ‘wash’ remember)? Sigh.
Then another thing came into my mind. These two rolls (the two rolls not-quite-fixed, not-quite-washed) have been giving me the devil of the time curling. If I pull a six-neg strip from these reels out of the neg sleeve, it curls right up. Doesn’t want to lay straight on the neg carrier in the scanner. No other roll ever gave me this kind of trouble. This is yet another sign that these pieces of film didn’t spend enough time in the fix.
And who knows what subtle damage the images on those rolls of FP4 have taken being half-fixed. Maybe none, maybe some.
Double sigh.
To fix the rolls I developed Saturday night, I poured in the diluted fixer and fixed them for 12 minutes (twice the time it took to clear). Then I washed them. They seem fine.
This mistake is recoverable. But obviously I need to be much more careful in my process and PROBABLY LABEL THE BEAKERS so I don’t do this again.
So, I need to a) buy more Fix; b) re-fix these strips of film (how I don’t know yet); c) re-wash these pieces of film (ditto; all my fix-and-wash methods involve the film being ON the reels, but these cut-up pieces of film won’t go back on the reels).
The images on those two rolls look interesting; one was a roll of street shots I took while walking around NYC with Kevin Allen, and the other is of the lake near my home in Gibsonia.
Another day, another lesson learned.
FP4, Rodinal, 9min, 68 degrees
Tried a new developer on some of the old rolls last night. Still in the experimental stage, I think. This image was shot almost a year ago, and I had forgotten a lot of the images on it. I’ll post a few more tomorrow.
Jerome, Arizona, 2008
I’ll just post these two and you can see the effect. No playing around this time, just let the plug-in do its thing (with the wall, I did darken it with the PerecpTool controls.
You have to really look closely (and these small JPEGs don’t help), but the main change I can see is the tool has subtly changed the light/dark ratio of the floor and walls.
I’ll keep playing to show more examples.
Without the effect
WITH the effect
Grandeur
This week’s been a little rough at work, so I haven’t been posting as often. Tonight’s thoughts came as I was watching one of my all-time favorite films, ‘Almost Famous,’ by Cameron Crowe. I’m not gonna pretend here, see, because I am an amazingly over-the-top fan of that film. I saw it 15+ times in the theater. And, I always tear up at some point in that film. When I use it to teach in my storytelling class, there’s point where I have to be in the back of the room, behind the students, because I know I’m gonna fight back tears.
I don’t know whether I see so much of myself in William Miller (with his desire to be accepted and to heal his family) or because the performances are so true and beautiful (I don’t think Kate Hudson has ever been directed or performed as well) or because it reminds me of the decade when I came of age, or all three. I don’t know. But the feelings that well up inside me when I watch it reminded me tonight of why I went into the arts.
I went into the arts to create something (or be part of creating something) so achingly beautiful that people weep when they experience it. To have them feel those feelings I feel when I see a film like ‘Almost Famous.’
My wife calls me a mush. It’s true. I don’t have enough fingers and toes to count the number of times I’ve teared up in a movie. The number of times I’ve left the live theater shivering because of the wonderous energy of those performances. The number of times I’ve had a piece of music that I’ve heard a hundred times on the car CD player and thought ‘ordinary’ be transformed into something angelic when performed live, and leave me breathless.
That is why I went into the arts in the first place, to try and bring forth those emotions in an audience. To just be part of that effort. Maybe just once in a while. When I did theater, I was lucky enough to be a part of productions that truly moved audiences. I was very, very lucky.
In photography, Winogrand does that for me. Dykinga. Cartier-Bresson. Arbus. Callahan. Not just “I wish I had taken that photograph,” but a sorta of an ‘oh my gosh . . .” and my mind comes to a stop.
This week I had an experience that, for a second, made me I think I might just be getting within shouting distance of that goal, a little bit, a little tiny bit, with some of my photographs.
I had left a post on Apple’s iWeb support forum and someone I don’t know saw the post and went unbidden to look at my site and took the time to write me the following email: “I am also a photographer and I just wanted to tell you that I find your photos absolutely BREATHTAKING! I hope that someday I can be even half the photographer that you are.”
Please don’t take this the wrong way. I’m not pandering for you guys to say “oh, come on, Chris, we like your work too, don’t be silly . . . yada yada.” In fact, if any of you guys do say that in your replies, I might just delete them out of curmudgeonliness.
But, to have someone, out of the blue, who had no investment or relationship to me at all, take the time to write that.
Well, it was just something. Something I needed this week.
And a thank you from the bottom of my heart to all of you who come by here from time to time and take a look at my work. It means a lot.
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