A Nice Refreshing Breeze

Morning folks - I hope you are all feeling tip-top and chipper, rather than feeling you've done 15 rounds with 18 white pudding suppers from The Chipper (you'll only get that if you're East Coast Scottish).

Hmmm - what's that lovely smell? 

It certainly isn't the wonderful aroma of diluted acetic acid liberally sloshed all over freshly-fried potatoes along with enough salt to construct a model of a Leica M2 . . nor is it that heady mixture of deep fried batter, fish and cigarette smoke drifting down the prevailing breeze on the Blackie! 

(Again, you'll only get that if you've ever been to the nether-regions of Dundee).

No!

It's the smell of change. 

God. 

AT LAST!

Ghost Of A Jute Mill

We were recently on a short but lovely family holiday to York. 

It was great, but seeing as we've done the place to death, this time, we explored more of the older pubs, of which there are quite a few. I am now actually of a mind to think, you can really get the measure of a place from its older pubs. 

We did the same in Brussels last year and it was eye-opening. 

However the smell of change wasn't just that wonderful afternoon feeling of a couple of pints and some really good chat. No. 

It was the curious metallically-musty smell of a newly opened camera back!

Yep - film cameras. 

I saw THREE. 

This is a new record for a trip away (I have recorded the film cameras I've seen on holiday religiously for years) so I can only assume that there's a fresh breeze whistling up the kilts of enthused amateurs like myself. 

How is it in your part of the world?

A couple of months back, I accosted a chap on Dundee's High Street, because he was carrying a Leica M6. 

I know, the sheer affrontary, but I couldn't just let him walk on by. 

I had my Rollei with me, so it was very much a case of 'show me yours and I'll show you mine'. 

He also said:

 

"You're not that bloke from here that writes that blog are you?" 

Outed. 

I couldn't believe it. 

And if you are reading this, hail and well-met squire!

Then in York, THREE film cameras:

A Praktika; a small rangefinder and an ME Super (so surprised was I by seeing that, that I actually walked up to the young woman and admired it - she said she loved it and it had been her fathers).

Include me with an M2/35mm Summaron and that's a few cameras.

And then, last week, I was out with the Mamiya C330, wasting a roll of Tri-X with a view to pushing it to 800 and developing it in Rodinal (sic) at 1+100. 

The pics were crap but the experiment worked. 

And there I was, standing in Blackscroft, wondering what to point my lens at, when a young woman shouted across the road at me: 

"MEDIUM FORMAT!" 

I was so shocked my false teeth nearly shot out. 

I said "Pardon?" and again she said "Medium Format" to which I said "Yes!" 

I crossed the road and asked her if she was a film user and indeed she was, a Pentax K1000 and she "loved it"! 

As we parted I shouted:

 

"Never stop using film."

 

and she said:

"I won't, I love it!"

I was chuffed as a chuffing chuffer in a chuffed-up competition. This is fantastic. 

Tri-X Ei 800, 1+100 Rodinal and Red Filter.
Mamiya C330 + 80mm f2.8

Tri-X Ei 800, 1+100 Rodinal and Red Filter.
Mamiya C330 + 80mm f2.8

I am pleased though, I'll tell you that. 

Myself and all the wee bloggers like myself who have been banging on about film for years . . maybe we've just been preaching to the wrong sorts, because in that time there's been a groundswell, albeit small, in people finding that actually film is fun, satisfying and educational in a skill-set sort of way.

Gosh - I hope we get badges or something.

There's an amendum to this - I've said before that I frequent Dundee's DCA Photography Forum - it's always been great, though I am one of the very few film users and pretty much the only darkroom user. Well, last time, there was a chap there who said he's just recently made his first darkroom prints and couldn't wait to get back in and make some more (he uses the DCA's own hireable darkroom). 

Oh boy, I was in heaven. 

Someone I can talk to about printing. 

And maybe that's where this wee upswell could continue growing. 

Home darkrooms. 

Or public ones, but home ones are good - there's no time pressures.

You know in recent times I've seen not-that-old Meopta Medium Format enlargers selling for well under £100. 

Now probably people in the market for an enlarger are thinking:

 

'Oh no, I NEED a DeVere, or a Kaiser or something with a Heiland head or stuff like that.'

 

To which I will say to you - YOU EMPHATICALLY DO NOT! 

Meoptas' (or older Dursts or LPLs, or even a good condition Leitz) are actually excellent little enlargers - very well made and solid with everything you need and nothing you don't. 

They're simple. 

Like printing. 

It is a really easy process and does not need super-computers or professional analysers to deal with exposing a bit of coated paper. 

Sure you can go as complex as you want, obviously, but in the initial stages it is all about learning the craft, and that doesn't have to be too expensive if you move along the RC paper route ***. 

What printing does need, is enthusiasm; an ability to take some (sometimes) considerable knocks in confidence, but above all else an ability to take it on the chin and keep going. That doesn't sound like FUN but I swear to you that it is - it's wonderful actually and in my opinion at least half of what makes you a 'photographer' - well it is at least half of what makes me a photographer.

Anyway, that's an aside. 

Things are moving. 

*** As an aside to this I urge Ilford to please watch the pricing on paper, because it would be quite easy to kill 'wet' printing stone dead. Having just been financially crippled from ordering 125 sheets of 8x10 MGFB, it doesn't half make you think twice; AND that's me speaking as a really enthusiastic printer . . . so Harman/Ilford, please . . watch it.

I'll not say much more than this:

If you are new to 'traditional' photography, Hello! well done, it's fun and hard work, but more the former than the latter. 

It can be as easy or as difficult as you wish, but that's up to you. 

At the end of the day it is ALL about expressing yourself. 

It might not be obvious, but that small miracle of metal/plastic/emulsion and glass that you're holding is a portal to creativity and self-expression. 

It's a time machine, a black hole and a conduit all at once.

It can frustrate and delight all on the same roll! 

Use it wisely and it can give you decades of pleasure (as long as they keep manufacturing film and paper). 

Treat it with respect and pleasure and it will repay you in spades.

In short, it's a wonderful thing.

And that's it - of course this could all be a herd of bullocks and a mere blip in the coincidence/time continuum, however, for the moment . . . 

There y'go - unusually for me - briefer than an ill-fitting pair of 1970's mustard-yellow Y-fronts.

Good luck folks!

Much love and respect.

H xx

Rescuing Old Crap

Well folks, and a jolly top-o-the-morning to you!

Today's post is something that might interest those of you who have darkrooms (or even those of you who don't) . . . basically it is dealing with ancient materials.

I have no wish for this to be considered a 101 on old photographic materials - there's lots of info out there already; all I can do is present my own experiences over the years and add in some practicle titbits of advice which you can either accept as a voice of experience, or tell me to F-off in the most brusque manner . . . it is up to you!

My Favourite.
There’s Something A Bit Hipgnosis About This.
Ancient Tri-X/Ancient Tetenal TT/Grade 4

Film and paper - gosh there's a lot of it out there!

As old photographers die, their relatives shove the stuff up on Ebay at a rate of knots. Look! some of them even open the black plastic bags full of paper and photograph the paper, just so you can see what great condition it is in! 

Film! 

I find it incredible that someone wants to buy film that expired in 1999 for a new project, when they could just as easily spend a bit less and get something that is fresher and more likely to deliver PREDICTABLE results. 

Yes folks it is true, at some point down the old film route, you'll meet Mr. N. Tropy and you know what, he ain't happy. Of course that's OK if you really don't mind wasting your time and efforts, but for me, I'd rather err on the side of caution.

I've been rather taken aback recently with some first-hand experience of the dread Ilford Backing Paper Mottle, because, strangely, it is not a consistently predictable defect. 

I've had it occur on some very old film indeed (Pan F) and yet Delta 100 with the same expiry (presumably manufactured around the same time) has been absolutely fine. 

Indeed Pan F from the same batch has been fine! 

FP4+ that expired a couple of years ago - 75% of the batch it was from has been fine so far and yet I had another roll from the same batch with the mottle. 

It is frustrating, annoying, upsetting and baffling, all at the same time. 

So basically what I am saying is that before you spend whatever on 20 rolls of Ilford whatever on Ebay that expired a few years back . . think twice. You've no idea how the film has been stored, nor whether you'll get mottled . . . 

Film is fairly hermatically sealed in that foil and yet some of the explanations I have seen for it have included atmospheric conditions! Hmmmm.

But anyway, that's an aside, albeit a worrying one . . . back to the meat and two veg of this post.

Our ‘old crap’ candidates for rescue were a roll of 120 Tri-X which was at the very least 30 years old, and a box of Tentenal TT RC paper, which, according to its previous custodian was at least 25 years old. 

That's over a quarter of a century of wear and tear. 

The Tri-X was paper/foil wrappered - not plastic - there was no date on it.

Being a bit of a twat, I thought what the hell, shoved it in the Hasselblad and took it down to Dundee's whale sculpture on a bright Winter's morning; snapping away just for the sheer pleasure of hearing a shutter go off. 

I had no preconceptions about these photos, they were just for fun. 

Getting home I thought that with film that old, I'd want to use a developer with some ooomph. 

In hindsight, this was daft thinking, but I'll not digress. 

I used HC 110, Dilution B, crossed my fingers and prayed to Ansel. 

Sorry No Light Table.
A Foggye Daye In Old Dundee Towne.

What emerged out of the fixer was OK-ish. 

I say OK-ish but there were large levels of base fog and even though I'd rated the film at EI 200, the negatives were quite underexposed in places (I can probably put this down to using a newly acquired Gossen Digisix, which I was unfamiliar with). Of course the base fog was at work too, rolling in like a grey version of the famous Dundee haar. 

So I made a contact print (again on really ancient Ilford Cooltone MGRC) looked at it and thought:

"Sheesh, what's the point?!”

And I put the whole thing aside . . . for a year.

Go On, Admit It. You Would Too.

But during that year, things changed a bit. I progressed a lot as a printer, simply because the lovely chap who gave me the Tetenal paper also gave me several hundred sheets of other papers - all well old (a minimum of 20 years) - I wasn't going to just ditch it, I was going to learn how to use it!

And I did - it was a steep curve. Fresher paper gives you wonderful blacks and crisp whites (mostly) but with some of the stuff I was using I was treated to muddy-greys and safari suit whites that had been dipped in dirty washing-up water. But the key thing is that I used its shortcomings as a learning curve - indeed most of the pictures I’ve published on this ‘ere blog in recent times (and my Instagram feed) are all scans off prints made on the self-same paper.

But back to that film/developer thing. Reading Anchell and Toop's 'Film Developing Cookbook' they said that the likes of Rodinal was far less likely to increase base fog than most other developers. Hmmmm, I thought - maybe the HC wasn't the best thing after all.

So having also been given nearly 70 rolls of truly ancient film, I started using Fomadon R09 at 1+50 and it has worked very well indeed. 

I'll sometimes use HC 110 (if the film isn't truly ancient) but mostly it has been Fomadon . . . and weirdly, also Perceptol. 

The thinking behind Perceptol is that although it is a solvent developer, it can really work with negatives with a broad tonal range. If you're knocking 3 or 4 stops off a film's box speed and pumping your exposures, why risk blasting the highlights? 

I’ve found Perceptol to be excellent in these sorts of situations - I use it at the Barry Thornton approved 1+2.

That's all well and good Sheepy, but warrabootthepapeeerman?

Ah yes, paper. 

A great deal depends on how it has been stored. 

The stuff I was given, had been, I think, bought in the Middle East, transported to New Zealand and then eventually back to the UK. 

It hadn't been frozen, just standard room temperatured. 

As I said before I wasn't going to just ditch it.

Well, straight outta the box the Tetenal (and indeed 30 years old Ilford MG) hit me with a brick of disappointment.

I tried to print them both at the notional 'standard' print of Grade 2 and got nowhere; the whole Grade 2 being the prime Grade for a print, is I believe an outdated concept, or at least it certainly has been for me. 

For many years I printed and aimed for a negative that would print on Grade 2. 

Having recently reviewed a lot of these archival prints I actually ended up chucking out a few hundred. Why? 

They were flat. 

As dead as a Dodo. 

Grade 2 whilst having a lovely spread of greys, really didn't do anything for the images - it’s probably the way I take ‘em - on the other hand Grade 3 and up did. 

So, with paper as ancient as we're talking about, your minimum starting point is Grade 3 (actually Ilford recommend [if you’re using a diffusion enalrger] that you print harder anyway). 

It will give you an averagely decent print (on the whole). 

I say that because, you'll probably find some of your Ebay chancers are actually fogged. 

Weirdly fogging isn't a consistent thing either. 

I was given (about 8 years back) some Agfa MCC from around the early 2000’s. 

My initial prints on it at Grade 2 were WTF? 

EVERYTHING was dull; even the paper base was dull. 

I tried some Benzotriazol and that's didn't cure anything either. 

In a fit of pique I thought I'll try one more, but at Grade 4. 

And you know what . . . the print was lovely, as was the rest of the box of paper. 

So, old Paper . . . Grade 3 minimum and maybe even more likely Grade 4. 

Fogging on the first sheet you grab? 

Delve deeper into the stack of paper and see what happens - like the Ilford Mottle it is NOT consistent.

Grade 3
Note Exposed Edge, Top Left

What A Difference A Grade Makes.
Grade 4

Grade 4 - Exposed Edge Top Left

Grade 4 Again - Not The Best Print Though

Still Looks Dull On Grade 4

Grade 5 Is Better, However I Misaligned The Image
 - Note The Rebate Is Showing Top Right Edge -

In The Words Of Robert Carlisle:
“Aaaah, That’s Better!"

With the Tetenal my starting point was Grade 3. 

But it was a no-no. 

Not exactly dull, just lacking in a bit of that old brass band OOMPA! 

Of course it has since occured to me that with these papers being ‘Pearl’ or ‘Lustre’ or basically anything slightly matt, you’re not going to get the same blast of euphoniums that you do with a good old glossy; however this is what I have at the moment. 

So next step - Grade 4 and then 5. 

And it worked. 

Although ye olde Tri-X negatives were pretty fogged and quite dense in places, the extra blast did the trick. 

It was like a whole new Tuba section wheeling on from a side street!

So, it can be done.

Take your time, make a nice print, double fix them, bit of toning and you’ve got something that should last as well as anything from a fresh source.

What I actually like about these photos is they are imperfect. In these days of software straightening everything, there’s none of that here. Yes I have converging verticals, yes they’re a bit squinty-woo . . . but I am not software.

As an ammendum to this whole process I found this little nugget on Ilford’s website:

CAN I STILL USE MY OLD OUT OF DATE PAPER?

We do not put expiry dates on paper as there are so many factors which influence how it will perform over time, for example, papers stored in cool dry conditions will fare better than those stored under more adverse conditions. Refrigerated papers will last even longer.

A simple print test will tell you if an old box of paper is performing to standard.

Well, I’ve got that to pushing 30 years so far . . . not too bad at all and sort of bodes well for the 1960’s box of Bromesco I have been given. 

As for you dear reader, of course you will be hit with the dread grey cat in a grey room - it’s bound to happen, but if you follow what I’ve said here and print at a harder Grade, hopefully you can skirt around it.

And remember if your lovely new batch of ancient film is smelling a bit funny . . . use Rodinal (sic).

And if you can’t be arsed, don’t blame me - YUMV as they say these days.

And that as they say, is that. 

Please remember I did this for fun and the learning process. 

It’s not ‘mission critical’. 

That’s probably why I’ve just ordered some fresh boxes of MGFB.

Over and oot.

H xx

Last Post

OK folks - don't spill yer coffee. 

It very nearly was The Last Post too, due to some very strange error messages on my Mac. 

It's pretty old, and have you seen the price of a new one these days? 

Anyway two days down the line and a reinstallation of the operating system, everything seems fine . . phew.

Anyway, I'll preface this post with a wise old saw from my old mate Ian 'Unter, of Mott The Hoople.

"Contrary to what various people say, this is the best possible form of music that there ever was, just this . . "

Regular readers of FB will know that I've struggled with formats over the years and this year has been the craziest courtesy of a couple of people - a certain Mr. Robbins of this parish who loaned me (amongst other things) a long-time lustable (the Mamiya Press [6x9]) and a friend at the forum who asked me whether I could reseal his Mamiya RZ (6x7) - a complete 3 lens, 3 back, AE finder etc etc kit! It is still here. I also did his OM4Ti (35mm) for him too . . . .

Sheephouse Turrets has been awash with cameras, from a Rollei Old Standard (6x6) the above two, various lenses, a new (old) Canon L2 (35mm) and a new (old) Mamiya C330F (6x6). 

It's quite bonkers - there's around 20 useable film cameras in the house and I find myself ever drawn to the old faves - my Hasseblads (6x6 and 645) and Nikons (35mm). 

Don't ask about the LF stuff (5x4") - I've enough film to last my lifetime and zero enthusiasm for lugging two and a half tons of gear anywhere at the moment.

The funny thing is, I would say it has probably been the most photographically active year of my life too, which has been great.

That has come courtesy of two things - the DCA Forum which forces me to produce something every month; it's not like they have me in a straightjacket or anything, but being nearly the ONLY ambassador for the DARK (room) ARTS, I feel I have to keep the side up. 

The other thing is The Thursday Occasional Club, where Mr. Robbins and I head out into the wilds of this 'ere neck of the woods.

It's a day of talk, laughter, great company, cameras, film, and (to me) a feeling that we're almost like the last two Neanderthals in a world of Homo Sapiens.

 

Despite the 'analog revolution' how many people do you know that use film? 

My answer to that is very very few.

Even in Brussels on holiday - a city that isn't exactly quiet - I spotted ONE Pentax ME. 

And that is it. 

Maybe we all come out at night . . I dunno, but it does feel to me that the world is getting smaller.

To this end (game) I've been thinking:

"What the fuck is going to happen to all this stuff when I pop my clogs?"

And it's not just the ever increasing 'burden' of camera stuff, it is (to my mind) THE WHOLE POINT OF DOING THIS. 

To wit:

THE PRINT

Y'see I find myself thinking a lot about how in another 20 years, I really could either be pushing up the daisies or can't be arsed to go through the lengthy and increasingly punishingly expensive process of (ahem) "traditional photographic practice".

To wit (yet again) so what happens to my 'legacy' (as it were) of decades of printing . . will I be bothered to care about it, or, on a darker note - how do the people that I leave behind, deal with it?

 

Bet you've never thought that before. 

But you will, and hopefully now you will be concerned, because you have put so much effort and skill into this whole creative effort, producing these smallish bits of time and paper which are a total reflection of your personality, that it really has to mean more in the great scheme of things than meeting an acrimonious end in a skip.

London Circa 1965.

Oh I know, photos survive - I was reminded of this recently when I uncovered a photograph of my recently departed sister with our family friend AJ. 

Maggie was about 14 and on her arm is the biggest fecking parrot you've ever seen. 

It's a family photograph and was a surprise to her daughters who had never seen it before. 

Family stuff tends to survive, albeit in an incredibly truncated version - and that is fine, because something will hopefully sail onwards. 

But creative stuff - that's a whole different kettle of fish - who wants it? More to the point, who is interested? 

Well, if you're a well-known photographer, someone somewhere is probably prepared to store it in perpetuity (and even more so if they can monetise it!)

But if you're a smalltown, Joe Soap (like me) who produces interesting (to my eyes) work that no one knows about . . . well . . the future is quite bleak. 

It's a fact, that despite all these well-meaning bits of nostalgia (like the 'return' to film and indeed LPs) the world is ever-increasingly becoming less grounded in physical stuff.

At the start of the year I thought:

I know, I'll print at 9.5 x 12" and store them in archival sleeves and that way someone at some point will think they have some worth rather than just chucking them.

But then, you're casting forward a huge burden of responsibilty on future generations, and, again, who's to say they'll be interested, or even have the space?

It's hard isn't it.

Please excuse me whilst I grab a cup of tea.

Certainly, printing at that larger size suits Medium Format.

There's no two ways about it, an 8x8" image on that size of paper screams gravitas (and also looks beautiful if you have been careful).

But the 35mm stuff . . yeah. 

Well . . . 

And so with much chin-scratching did I realise that the vast quantity of 35mm stuff I have, was destined to remain forever just a tiny, squinty thing on a contact print, which is ridiculous when you think about it!

I've got a daft number of 35mm cameras and lenses and I don't even consider myself a 35mm photographer! 

I've got thousands of 35mm images, which, whilst pretty stupid looking on a contact, surely must have meant something to me, in that I actually took a photograph of them.

The Medium and Large Format stuff is easy to deal with. The worthwhile, printable images are all too easily visible (though of course you can revisit at a later point and something might catch your eye that you didn't consider in the beginning) but 35mm stuff?

Well if you were to print everything you fancied printing, at sizes like 8x10" or even 5x7" you're still creating a VAST amount of burdeny-stuff. 

That's a new phrase btw - B-S.

It's a prickly pear isn't it man-cub?

Let me rewind a bit to a recent trip Brussels.

WTF Sheepy are you off on one again?

Well yes, y'see I discovered (well actually he's been there a few years) a most wonderful shop. 

It is called Avec Plaizier. 

You can find their Instagram here

We've been in his shop before, but this time (on a chucking wet morning) with a Canon L2/35mm LTM Nikkor around my neck and a subcutaneous feeling that there was little point in me carrying it, all of a sudden I had a revelation.

And it literally did land with a massive CLONK in my head.

Postcards

My goodness it was so obvious. 

All those years of weird pictures - print postcards. 

They're small (ostensibly 6x4" but in these metric days 10x15cm) but they're handleable in a way that even the smallest arty print isn't.

There's no bull with a postcard. 

You're not handling it with kid gloves; it's there to serve a purpose. 

Yes it will get damaged, written on and (if fulfilling its destiny) will travel somewhere and end up as a skidder under a posties shoe, or (hopefully) ultimately be pinned to a noticeboard or attached to a fridge, or even end up framed. But the thing is, it is out there, like some subversive entity, disseminating your mad view of the world and passing through the hands of others.

I was in such as fever as to be nearly breathless.

OK, back to reality and an order to place - I was determined. 

Not many places stock that size of paper, and indeed as far as I can see, my only choices are Ilford MGRC and FB and Ilford Portfolio. 

Harman don't even produce it as Kentmere; see what I mean about the world getting smaller?

Years back every manufacturer produced it. 

Biting the (expensive) bullet I ordered some Portfolio from Process Supplies (who I love by the way - a proper old-school, knowledgable company [who else would tell you that Ilfospeed is now discontinued and they're running down stocks?]). 

Incredibly with Portfolio, you're nearly 70 pence a sheet for this size. 

I will say though, never having tried it before, gosh it is good. 

It's pretty stiff and will dry relatively flat though that is dependent on relative humidity - mine developed a temporary bow on a very very wet weekend, but it returned to nearly normal after. 

The emulsion is the same as Ilford MG, this meant I could produce ad-hoc test strips with my Kentmere paper as there was no way I was cutting a sheet of this stuff up.

I also decided, seeing as I really want these small worlds to last, that I'd double fix and selenium tone them. 

Quite a lot of work for something so small, but you know what, I feel it is worth it.

Gosh, you can even get Secol postcard sleeves (and acid free rummage boxes) to protect your masterworks too.

Of course, being postcards you can print as many as you like - once you've nailed the original print, make notes on the back, and that is your reference. Store it safely if you want, but if you want to bang out 10 copies of the same thing you can easily do so. Traditional photography, is, after all, a semi-industrial process!

As a size, 10x15 is a cinch to handle. 

5x7" trays and you're laughing. 

What could be easier?

Anyway, here's a selection of some of my more, how shall we say, esoteric photographs. 

I trimmed the borders off for the scans, but for all of the actual cards, I am using a border of 5mm Left and Right, and 4.5mm Top and Bottom. 

My lovely old (gifted) Leitz easel is wonderful for this.

As this is a work in progress (and seeing as Ilford stopped printing the Postcard stuff on the back of them) I still haven't physically trialled one in the postal system yet, but I intend to. 

You get proper 'PostCard' rubber stamps and a wealth of archival inks to rub them up with - I've got one on my Christmas list.

Maybe Portfolio is too much?

It would probably be cheaper producing them with an inkjet, but I don't own one, so for the moment . . . anyway, I just like printing, so I'm not going to let a squirter spoil my fun.

I'll maybe get some Ilford MGRC and try that too and see what happens.

Anyway, I can report that to me they are a success and have a lovely uniformity to them which I've always felt was lacking in any 35mm prints I've ever made. 

It is a new way forward and I do believe I will adhere to it.

Give it a go if you can - they look (AND FEEL) really good . . honest.

Until the next time, TTFN and remember to be kind to that old man stuck up your chimney.

H xx

Afternoon Delight

Q: Got a ton of old negatives that you have not a clue what to do with and you're worried about the Cost Of Living Crisis and energy coasts?

A: Get yourself a darkroom - simple as that. 

Morning folks - you know it says something when the darkroom is the warmest room in the house, but this Winter this is proving to be the case - jings, even Olive Oil solidified in our kitchen!

  

But it is very different in the darkroom - I can snuggle up tight in there, heating myself with nothing more than a constant temperature (it used to be a wine cellar); the intermittent use of a 250W bulb; one 15W safelight and the white heat of creativity 😎.

It works a treat. 

Grey days drift away in a flurry of activity lit red. 

Ice on the windows? 

No problem, hunker down in the darkroom and learn.

Sun not risen at all today?

Take up thy fixer and walk (or kneel in my case).

5x4" Negative,
Fomabrom Variant 111, Kodak Selenium,
Adox Neutol NE Developer

Regular readers will know that when I was a young man, pretty much what I wanted to do with life was print. 

Regular readers will also know that what happened was not what I expected and economic circumstance led to an entirely different path. 

Well, with a change in life circumstances, that has now changed. 

I can print . . and not only that, but I can print what I want and when I want to. 

It's marvellous.

Various 9.5 x 12" prints in Secol sleeves

To that end, and as mentioned recently, I have tried to standardise an archive, and it wasn't the easiest matter.

The problem hit me when I (after much faffing and measuring) printed an 8x8" image from my Hasselblad on 9.5x12" paper. 

I was, to coin a phrase, knocked out. 

It wasn't so much the sheer image size, but more the print now gave real presence to the Zeiss lens. 

I hadn't been expecting this, after all I had printed on 9.5 x 12" paper before, but this was something else.

I repeated the exercise with the Rollei T's Tessar, and the Minoltor Autocord's Rokkor, and whilst they were good (really good at times) neither had the sheer grit, micro-detail and subtle greys of the Distagons and Sonnars, and Biogon.

I then repeated the exercise with images from my Large Format lenses. 

To say this was a revelation is a bit of an understatement. 

A 5x4" negative printed on bigger paper with a decent border is a thing to behold.

I have to precursor that though, with the following: 

Up till now, my LF enlarging lens has been a nice 80's-ish 150mm Rodenstock Rodagon. 

It's been fine (despite the obvious scuffs on the front and the back - the latter I believe robbing me of a decent amount of quality) but always left me with an itch I really wanted to scratch. 

To my eyes, every print I have ever made from a 5x4" with the Rodagon has just not had the chutzpah you're supposed to get with Large Format photography. 

The lens was effectively free with my DeVere (God Bless Mr. MXV, wherever you are) and I always just accepted that (as has been written many times) MF and even 35mm lenses produce 'sharper' results than LF. 

Hmmm, well . . . he said stroking his chin. 

I was having a butchers at enlarging lenses on Ebay one day, and, because I believe a lowly 100mm Vivitar is the best enlarging lens I have ever owned (yes, over Leitz and Rodenstock, Durst and Nikon) I came across a 135mm one . . for £32. 

That's not even a brainstorming, sick-on-the-pavement night in the pub these days, so I thought why not. 

And indeed the thing was a complete revelation. 

All the micro-detail, subtle grey nuances and "overall bollocks" (that's a technical term - look it up - it's in "The Negative" . . page 134) that I'd always thought were there on the negatives, were indeed there, but now writ large on big paper. 

Oh boy was I a happy bunny.

And what, you might well be asking yourself, is the big paper?

Well for 'economical' purposes I decided to get 50 sheets of Ilford MGFB and a 10 sheet sample box of Foma 111. 

Why Ilford? 

Well, the colour head mixing settings for different grades are the same as Kentmere RC (and I had a box of that) so I am not having to slice up expensive fibre paper to make test strips and overall, I would say things match up very well. 

As for Foma, I have never used it before and I have to say I shall be using it again, which is weird because I am not really a fan of their films. 

The paper though has a different look to Ilford. 

Its surface reminds me more of the sheen on Forte's Polywarmtone which I always loved. AND it looks like Fomabrom and Fomaspeed (the RC version) use the same emulsion, so I can use RC for test strips.

OK Sheepy, wtf about dry-down etc, how can you possibly judge things?

 

Well, it is a complex matter, that, dare I say might well have been over-egged over the years. 

If you read around, dry down is a relatively strange thing, running from shifts in the darkest tones (Ansel's "thud") of a print due to: wet prints vs dry prints; heat drying; malevolent forces; changes in emulsion; alien interference etc etc - told you it was complex. 

I always air-dry my prints and have to say I have never noticed any really significant darkening of images and that is over decades of printing. Sure there is a small (as in tiny) amount, but to say this impacts on the quality of the print, is hair-splittingly hairiness of the hairy kind.

A lot of people have said it is commensurate with heat drying and I can see how that might affect things, but I don't heat dry.

Air Drying -secondhand caravan clothes line and plastic pegs!
Left and Right, Ilford Pinned Back To Back method.
Centre, Sheephouse "'Ang It From The Corner Missus" Method

It's also probably anathema to all the cloak-wearing darkroom wizards out there about using RC paper to make a printing judgement for FB paper, but it can be done. 

The greatest printer I ever knew was Joseph McKenzie, and he could make an exposure/grade judgment call just by looking at a negative. That ability came from thousands of hours spent printing; in other words experience. 

I'm sure the likes of Robin Bell and all the Master Printers out there, doing this for a living can work in the same way too.

For me, I don't have their eyes, so I will decide on my Grade (which as a starting point is nearly always Grade 3 these days) hack up a bit of RC, whack it on the weasel, expose in 4 second increments, whack it in the developer, develop for most of the proper time, give it a wiggle in the stop, whack it in the fix, and slap the lights on after about 15 seconds. 

I can generally make a decent judgement call from this.

You see, although printing is a relatively easy process defined by care, as in:

You have all the ingredients (assuming you have a decent negative) to make an impressive print.

You have all the ingredients (assuming you have a decent negative) to make a dog's dinner.

The darkroom is the GREAT LEVELLER.

That sounds like the name of the horned bloke from 'Legend' or, more to my taste, the name of the horned bloke from Tenacious D's "The Greatest Song In The World".

Why the Great Leveller? 

Because everyone is using pretty much exactly the same stuff, from exhibitions hanging in MOMA, to a couple of prints stuck up in a local cafe.

The difference between famine and feast is your care as a printer. 

You have to be precise and consistent. 

You have to take care with each stage (yeah I know what I wrote above about my test strips, but I can say that because I have been doing this for a long time).

But the thing is, printing ISN'T rocket science. 

It's a craft skill, like crochet or knitting and anyone can learn a craft skill.

It truly is an egalitarian process.

And whilst these days it is considered to be a luxury craft skill, and boy can it be frustrating when you make mistakes with a sheet of paper costing a couple of quid, on the whole, it is FUN. 

And educational. 

And, I believe, life-enhancing.

It improves you as a human being, because the care you take in the darkroom, can lend itself to run and rummel of every day life too. 

The precision, order and concentration rub off. 

They really do!

But that is me heading on another of my Sheephousian metaphysical borrocks convos, and we don't want to go there.

So, to round out, here's some straight scans of recent stuff, printed whilst ice formed on the inside of my house's windows, grey skies cemented themselves onto the general milieu of the British psyche and people started another year in a great state of flux and doubt.

If that phrase applies to you, I am sorry - things will get better, just trust that.

5x4" Negative, 
Fomabrom Variant 111, Kodak Selenium, 
Adox Neutol NE Developer

 

5x4" Negative, 
Fomabrom Variant 111, Kodak Selenium, 
Adox Neutol NE Developer

5x4" Negative, 
Fomabrom Variant 111, Kodak Selenium, 
Adox Neutol NE Developer

35mm Negative, 
Ilford MGRC, Heavily toned in Selenium, Then Bleached in Ferri.
Firstcall MG Developer

TTFN old fruitcakes and thank you, once again, from the bottom of my heart, for reading.

Be good and if you can't be good, be careful.

Everything is going to be alright.

H xx

Consistency

Morning folks - it has been a while, I know, but Summer is a time for hanging about in the garden, reading, eating raspberries, y'know, that sort of languidity, but as the mornings are getting darker, I am getting back to a certain swing . . . so, without further ado - onwards!

Now, this may or may not prove interesting/dull however, if you're like me, and have a darkroom, you'll print a fair bit and probably (also like me) have boxes of:

a. Prints

b. Scraps

c. 'Work' prints

d. I'll do a better one next time

However fortunately (unlike dust bunnies, bags of documents to be shredded, receipts, bus tickets, etc etc) they don't breed when you're not looking at them; no, they sit, patiently, waiting to be admired, adored, framed, scanned or, most likely, tossed out in a fit of pique!

And whilst they're not exactly a problem, they become a problem of sorts.

Pigs, Piglets And Runts

I was brought up short by this recently when I had reason to find some prints to take to a Saturday morning 'portfolio' session at Dundee's DCA.

"Hmmmmmm" is what I said to myself as I waded through paper sizes ranging from 6 x 4" to 9.5 x 12" . . ."just where does one start?"

The majority of stuff was printed on 8 x 10" and a mix at that, of Resin and Fibre all from different manufacturers; however the finer looking prints were, to my eye, on the smaller paper sizes. 

I particularly liked a set printed on some really old Agfa MCC FB. It had a semi-warm look to the paper base and the gloss was JUST RIGHT. 

The only problem though, was that the paper size was 5 x 7" meaning that the images (all squares) were 11 x 11 CM, or approximately 4½" square. 

That is pretty tiny really, and all the more so when you consider that they were taken on one of the world's great optics - the Zeiss 38mm Biogon. 

They were also all shot on a tripod, with the film (Ilford FP4+) being carefully developed in Pyrocat-HD. 

There's no two ways about it, to my eyes this set-up produced a top class negative, with nothing being washed out, really good mids and shadow detail. 

The negatives printed dead simply at Grade 3, with little hand-wafting. 

Ideal is what I would normally say.

But then I printed them small.

Did I say small?

I meant to say dead small.

It seems a bit incongruous to me, that I take all that optical and image quality and condense it to sit proudly on a print not much bigger than yer oldy holiday snaps of yore, but with much less image space being taken up!

Bonkers actually.

These should be BIG prints and hung somewhere in my study, and yet . . . . 

There's something about small prints that I like.

Apart from being considerably cheaper to produce, a 5x7" has a nice tactile quality. Even nicer is the old whole plate size of 6.5 x 8.5".

Where 5x7" feels small in the hand, whole plate feels small but substantial, and in fact in a strange way and to my faculties, actually bigger than 8x10". I've no idea why that is, but it is a lovely format, though very short on choices of paper.

Anyway, all this tomfoolery highlighted something to me - I need to get my arse in gear and print a portfolio of decent images I am happy with on consistently sized paper.

It's no good having some 9.5 x 12s' some 8x10s', some 5x7s'. some 6x4s' all dotted about the place with images taken on 35mm, 645, 6x6, 6x7, 6x9 and 5x4 - it all looks too bitty, and, inconsistent.

So, self soundly admonished, that's a project for The Winter. 

I have a reasonable stock of fibre paper too, including a box of unopened Grade 2 Galerie and a box of Kentmere Matt (lovely stuff) from when Kentmere was still based in Cumbria.

So I could use that up, or, nail my trousers to the Fibre Only Mast, sell my kidneys and go all the same manufacturer - though my choices there are pretty much only Ilford MG, Grade 3 Galerie, Art 300, Bergger, Foma and possibly Adox - and that is it.

The old Agfa MCC fibre is wonderful stuff but I only have it in 5x7 - I would have happily printed everything on that. Adox's version isn't quite the same, but it IS a good paper.

In a world of choice, ye olde darkroom enthusiast is being painted further and further into a distant corner.

Of course, with the way energy is going over here, I might not even be able to turn the enlarger on . . . that takes me back to pre-enlarger days when I tried contact printing Rollei negatives using a sheet of glass and a snooded torch . . . yes, well, enuff said . . . .

Wish me luck.

Till next time, stop skipping and try hopping and jumping instead.

H xx