Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Developed 6 Sheets Of 5x7

This morning I developed 6 of the 8 sheets of yesterdays dad shoot after work today. The negs look FINE, nice exposure and development. I settled on development time of 10 minutes at 20C 1/1 D-76 at agitation level 4 in an Expert Jobo tank. I think I should be able to make a nice print out of one of these negs, even with a 2 second exposure time at F8.2 . Long portrait exposures are a new area for me, under a loop 3 shots have blurry eyes and 2 look reasonably sharp. One thing that's a bit tough with the 120mm is that it is only a F8 lens so focusing in low interior light is a bit dodgy. Couple that with a wide aperture and a very slow shutter and your sharpness difficulties are compounded.

The technical stuff can be overcome with hard work and practice. What is really exciting is seeing the dimensions of the neg (same as 35mm) with the wide angle 120mm lens (35mm equivalent is about 24mm).  I keep running through all the images I want to make in Asia with this machine, the possibilities are endless and very exciting. One of the joys of photography for me is the dreaming and the planning, the thinking about the pics is joyous. When some of the dreams eventually become a reality whether it's complex large format 8x10 sex worker studio portraits or 35mm Leica stuff in the dump, then that makes it that much more special. Anyone can dream a pic but to go out and make it and see it floating in the fix, now that's the high of highs! From the planning to the completion its all beautiful, thats why I love photography so much.

"Ain't Photography Grand!"

When I can get some nice light I will I try some 210mm shots of dad and the 5x7. Shooting the 5x7 in Asia will be physically difficult but it will be a blast, it will be extremely rewarding, life does not get much better than that.

Got to go hang up my washing negs then its off to bed, night folks.