Printing these little 35mm negs on to the large 16x20 paper is fun! Even if the images are not sharp though out the photographs can look and feel good. When I am shooting and printing larger formats like 4x5 or 8z10 I generally only print negs that have edge to edge sharpness (got to get beyond that way of thinking) but with these 35mm Tri-x (Leica M6) negatives I am finding beauty in the unsharp grain that often surrounds my subject.
I have looked over Sebastiao Salgado's book "Africa" dozens of times through the years and have always marvelled at how even thou many parts of his photographs are out of focus the impact still is so compelling. I am now starting to see that in some of my Klong Toey 35mm slum work, a focused central subject with out of focus edges that tells an effective story. Who cares if its in focus or not as long as the message comes through, as long as the print tells the tale nothing else matters.
One of the 4 photos printed yesterday:
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| Puppy Klong Toey Slum, Bangkok 2012 |
