Week 46: Einfahrt freihalten ...
We had guests last weekend and we had a trip with our guests to Baden-Baden. I had my little Zero2000 with me, loaded as ever with Fuji Neopan Acros.
We went to the palace in Baden-Baden, called Neues Schloss. In 2003 it was sold to some investors from Kuweit who are going to transfer it into a hotel. I will show just a few detail images of this place. The image above shows the entrance to the area with an old sign which asks to keep the entrace free.
Week 47: Festspielhaus Baden-Baden ...
Here is another one from our trip to Baden-Baden. It is the entrance to the Festspielhaus which was a train station before but is now made into a theatre or concert hall. The side-print shows a broader view of the building. If you are interested, here are the coordinates to their english web-site: Festspielhaus Baden-Baden
Interesting enough, after all the lith and kallitype printing, I am still able to make straight prints. Well with a light sulfur toning as you can see.
Week 48: Bus Stop ...
This is an image I made specifically for a kind of challenge in an internet forum I participate. Although it is a Nikon related forum I am allowed to show pinhole images. And there are others who also show their pinhole images there. Now the image above is not the version I show there. I did two different prints. A pretty straight print which I toned and a lith print. When I uploaded my image to the challenge I decided for the toned version. Well, about ten minutes later I regretted because I like the lith version more. So the side print is the print I show in the challenge and you can form your own opinion about it.
Week 49: Under the Power Line ...
Do you remember back the post where I talked about sheet film troubes? The week where I had a sheet film holder loaded with the film face down? Well I went back to that place and did another exposure and you guess right, this time the film was loaded properly. I tried a few days later, around the same time but the light was different - unfortunately. So what you see above is the image I lost and got back - kind of.
The initial plan was to lith print it, but I decided on a normal print with the highlights bleached back sightly and then toned in vario sulfur toner (in a light brown setup). The paper is Ilford MG Warmtone. This paper used to have a rather creamy paper base but now is coated on a much more white base. That allowed to do a cool tone development and so gave me cool shadows and due to the toning warm highlights - a kind of a split tone.
The image itself was not that easy to scan since I heat dried it and that brought in a good amout of curl. Now I am back to air drying. Sometimes the best method to use is to wait. Anyway this was an image which got alot of attention since after the toning there showed up some cristals on the surface and a kind of fog which showed every flaw like finger prints and marks from the tongue etc. After a talk to Wolfgang Moersch it was clear: That is because of our hard water and a soft emulsion. So I tried to save the image by putting it into a water bath again and scrubbing it with a cotton ball (yes, do that to an inkjet print - oh well, they do not need to be toned, so why would you do this). Then it went into a hardener bath for one minute and was washed again for 10 minutes (with some more scrubbing). Now it looks like new, but the drying went not as well.
Week 50: Speyer, Bridge ...
This is the bridge over river Rhine at Speyer. I was there with our guests (see week 46 and week 47) and we visited the cathedral and the old town. That was in November and they were already building up the Christmas market. I am sure that within a few years they start Christmas markets in the summer and instead of spiced wine they will serve cooled drinks. Anyway after we visited the town we went down to river Rhine and I got my shot of the bridge. There will be some more images of Speyer to come because at that day I had a bit of a problem with the angle of view of my little Zero2000 and ended up with many images of buildings with their roof cut off.
As you can see, this is again a non-lith/non-alternative print. It seems that I find my way back into straight printing again. Well, at least the image got some sulfur and iron toning. I can not go with a straight print. Not yet.
One negative only or how many images are good for you ...
The following might sound completely silly - but how boring would life be if we are not allowed to be kind of silly from time to time.
When I work with my 8×10 pinhole camera, there is something special. I do not know exactly what it is, but I think it has to do with dealing with one negative only - or should I say one exposure only. That means, different from other formats, with 8×10 I only develop one exposure at a time compared to 4×5 where I develop 6 exposures at once in a tank or medium format, there it is 12 exposures or 35mm where it is up to 36 exposures, not to count multiple films in one tank. For me this means, when I expose a sheet of 8×10 it is pretty clear what I want to do with the negative, e.g. will it be a kallitype or a lith print etc. Yes, usually I also have my plans with my medium format images, but it is thought through in much more depth when I use that 8×10 camera. It is more of an I produce a photograph - one photograph - approach. It is more dense, also in time. Usually after having developed that one sheet of film I will be in the darkroom again the next evening or even the same day to print it. To print that negative. It seems that I am much more connected to that particular negative.
This approach does not mean, that my 8×10 images are any better or worse than my images from other formats by definition, I also take the time I need for each of the exposures when using 4×5. But it means that I am more satisfied with the whole process. And that might influence also the quality of the print. It is the one print approach.
And that leads me to a question driving me for some time now: How many images are good for you?
Now in the age of digital, where an image costs only a push on the shutter release button, many people make or should I say create a lot of images. Go out to the internet, on flickr, pbase, or photosig to only mention a few and you see millons, billions or even more images. Some very good work, and some work which you probably do not like, who cares, we are flooded with images anyway. And it is not only a digital phenomenon. I see this when looking in the mirror, I make a lot of photographs. I make probably many more photographs than it is good for me. Probably there are still some good negatives in my files which wait to be printed and never will. Maybe because my printing is not able to follow my capturing (number-wise). And then new work is always more interesting than old work.
I usually do not store my negative files in the darkroom. But what I have in the darkroom is a drawer where I put in the negatives which I currently work on. And they will stay there for some time because I may come back to a negative after some time and have a look at it again. If you are a photographer yourself, you may have had the same situation, when you are in the darkroom, put a negative into the film carrier and once the image is projected to the base board you immediately realize: not today, maybe tomorrow.
Now a few days ago I was looking for a specific negative and had to browse through all the files in the drawer and found out that I had nearly 70 files in the drawer and by randomly putting them on the light table I found a lot of images which I have never thoroughly looked at and which are probably worth taking a closer look - two of them you can see in this post. And for each of these 70 files I had to make the decision - leave them in the drawer or take them out? How many images are good for me? Probably fewer images than I capture.
So, ask yourself, how many images are good for you?
Week 51: Two more from Speyer ...
So, here are two more images I took on the trip to Speyer with our American guests. The first is a little tower near the cathedral. I do not know what its initial intend was, since it does not seem to be used as a defensive wall. The second is a Kiosk in the park around the cathedral. At least I think it is a kiosk kind of thing and you probably can sit there and get something to drink in the summer. But I am not sure, since I never was there when it was open.
Both images are straight prints on Adox MCC which I toned in selenium an sulfur.
Have you realized, Week 51, so there is only one more week to come and then this little project is over, and maybe the blog will get closed - or not, I am not sure yet. Well, it is still another week to decide.