Monday, May 17, 2021

Five new prints

Maybe I should introduce a regular “darkroom log” series, where I show and tell the prints I recently made. Or maybe not. We’ll see. But this time, I do.

This weekend, I spent two evenings in my darkroom and made five new prints.

They were all made from 6x6 medium format negatives, and all were enlarged to 21x21 centimetres and printed onto 24x30cm Fomaspeed 312 matte RC paper.

Two guys at Oslo Opera

I'm holding a print of two very similar looking men, sitting on the

This is one of my favourite photos I took in Norway in 2016.

This was not easy to print. Firstly, the negative was denser than I’m used to. And secondly, it had a weird two-colour tint to it. Which probably was a result of having it developed while on camping tour – and which might not have given the roll the treatment it deserved. But I’m speculating.

Anyhow, I had to use a higher-contrast filter than I expected, and the exposure was relatively long.

Detail (sorry, I didn’t adjust white-balance on any of these photos of the prints):

A detail/crop of two very similar looking men, sitting on the

Zoe in the bathtub

Zoe (3) in the bathtub, with swimming goggles on.

This also wasn’t so straight-forward. I find bathroom photos where everything is different levels of white somewhat hard to work with. The negatives often look “strange” to begin with – and then I’m never sure how to dial in the contrast. And this one turned out a little too dark for my tastes. But good enough for now.

This image is from this year by the way.

Also: there’s always going to be dust or other particles somewhere, no matter what you do!

Crop of Zoe (3) in the bathtub, with swimming goggles on.

Nicole in front of Slovenia’s mountains

A partly cloudy landscape image of mountains with a little person in the bottom middle of the frame.

On our way back from Croatia in 2017, we spent a little bit time in Slovenia, too. We didn’t really explore the mountains there – a shame! – but did stop here and there and went for a walk or two. And this was at one of those stops.

Very happy with the result here. This was relatively easy to print. If I was really motivated, I’d darken the clouds a bit more – probably by way of a split-grade print. But I wasn’t. I noticed, though, that the enlarger lens seems to have slight vignetting, as the clouds in the top right would’ve otherwise not been that white and partly blown out. Something to look out for in the future.

A crop of the person at the bottom middle of the frame.

Alex in a café in the Cotswolds

A man sitting on a sofa underneath a standing lamp, looking at the camera.

While on a long-weekend trip to the Cotswolds with my brother Alex and our dad (in 2016), we stopped at this little cosy café for some rest and recovery after a long day of walking.

While all other photos were taken with my Rolleiflex, this one was taken with the Lomo Lubitel.

That little film crease right over the ear is annoying. But what can you do?

Zoe and Nicole in the Rhine

A child waist-high in a river. A woman next to it. Both facing the camera, but not looking into it. A beach and houses in the background.

Taken in the summer of 2019 at one of the local Rhine-beaches here in Düsseldorf. This was an easy print as well.

Zoe’s expression: priceless. She had a lot of fun that day.

Print log over!