Darkroom Daze

Whew! Another day, another step closer to getting the upcoming show ready.

One thing that separates darkroom printing from any modern inkjet equivalent is the extra calibration and control needed to achieve a consistent, cohesive series of images. "Dapper", being my largest solo exhibition to date, I was even surprised just how unprepared I was, for hand printing 30 images of varying size and exposure. In the end, it'll be the quality of the prints that will count, and boy will they have it! All prints are being made on double-weight fiber base silver gealtin paper. After exposure, some requiring some intense dodging and burning, the paper is developed in Kodak Dektol, fixed, washed, selenium toned, and washed again for archival permanence. Another one-up on digital, these prints should see their way through to my nineties, assuming they're cared for reasonably.

When I've got the last round of 8x10's printed and dried, I'll be posting a quick how-to video on selenium toning prints for aesthetic appeal and archival permanence.

P.S. Silver gelatin papers aren't cheap, just check out what they're going for right now! >__<

Hangers & Tanks, Hangers & Tanks! (Film Processing)

                                                       

Ok guys, usually I'm pretty adamant about whatever system I use when processing film. Up until this past week, 8x10 film had always been processing in trays, sloshing a stack of sheets for a pre-determined amount of time. Now that x-ray film has entered the field of play, the entire game has changed! Where tray processing modern film emuslions such as Ilford HP5+ and Kodak Tri-X could afford me processing loads of up to 8 sheets, x-ray film slowed things down to a meager 1-2 sheets at a time. In turn, this lead to uneven development, inconsistent processing, and a whole lot of wasted developer. None of these things are good, to be expected, or something I can live with.

Little did I know, the most simple, elegant solution for my problem had been invented well over 50 years ago! 8x10 film hangers and tanks; those stainless steel, chemistry devouring film hangers and processing tanks were designed with thinner based, orthochromatic films in mind. Simply load the x-ray film under red safelight, place film into pre-soak for 5 minutes, semi-stand process for best compensating effect and acutance, and reap the benefits! At the moment, I'm without a stainless steel drying rack, but since the Pyrocat HD developer further tans and hardens the double-sided emulsion, after final washing, I remove the film to photo-flo and dry it in a cabinet.

So how are the results? There's still a little bit of the backlog to be uploaded to Flickr, but for now, here's a sneak peek at the works in progress.

Stay tuned for more updates on X-Ray film, B&W processing, YouTube videos, and more!

Split Grade Printing Examples

While souping some 16x20's in the darkroom this evening, I was reminded of a question friend and fellow film photographer Dan Domme (Flickr) asked a few days ago about split grade printing. He was basically wondering how one can print two different grades onto silver paper, and why one would print like that. So, in lazy, not wanting to write up a long blog post, fashion, here's a quick video detailing what split grade printing is, what negatives you should use it on, and some examples. Enjoy!

If you've never tried split grade printing before, all you need is some: variable contrast papers (graded won't work), a contrasty negative, B&W filter set (00-5 preferred), and a little bit of darkroom time, and you're all set. It's very easy to do, and the results are not too shabby! If used with negatives that don't require too much dodging and burning, it's a very easy way to get consistent, contrasty results with silver gelatin printing. Thanks for looking, and hope you can try out this helpful darkroom hint for yourself.