According to Flickr, I made my first film post back in April of 2009. Since then, I’ve shot many feet of stock, learned quite a bit about line and shadow, and managed to become a decent processor of black and white negatives. I’ve enjoyed sharing my work by scanning negs and posting them online, but they never have the same impact that they would framed, hanging on a wall (I’ve had a shot at that, too).

When I decided that I wanted to try developing, my father-in-law eased me into things by giving me a trove of film paraphernalia that was sitting unused in his garage. Besides a Yashica Mat-124G TLR, the bin contained a Paterson tank, reels, thermometer, and other processing accessories, alongside an enlarger (covered in dust-abating trash bags). I gladly accepted the lot – I’d been studying up on developing, and it seemed achievable. The whole darkroom thing felt like a far-distant goal.

An axiom of photography goes something like, “It’s not a picture until it’s printed.” I’ve got a nice Epson 13×19 inkjet photo printer that produces big, beautiful color images – I need to use it more for that – but I’ve never been sold on the black-and-white output. At the same time, something just feels “less-than” about digitally printing a photo that came to be in an analog process. I’ve been itching to carry that through to the next step, emulsion to emulsion. A week ago, something in my head told me it was time.

I stripped away the plastic of the bags covering the apparatus and found that I’d been gifted an late-70s Omega rig with a Chromega B Dichroic color head. What’s that? It’s purported to have been of the better enlargers for home printing of color photographs. I don’t plan to print much color (if any at all), but the color filters built into the unit are perfect for controlling the contrast of black-and-white prints as well. Its external power supply buzzed a satisfying buzz when switched on and the in-line timer did its job when asked. The whole thing seemed in great shape, except for the burned-out halogen lamp. With a replacement for that and a few more supplies, I figured I’d be able to convert a windowless bathroom into a weekend darkroom and be on my way.

My father-in-law was excited about the prospect of showing me the ropes, so I took him along to Hollywood on a Freestyle run. As always, the staff there was awesome and hooked me up with what I needed – bulb, trays, tongs, safelight, and paper. I went with cheap Arista chemistry and paper – a resin-coated pearl – as I knew I’d be blowing through a lot of it in trial-and-error exercises.

At home, we set to work light-sealing the bathroom door. It was easier than I’d expected, with a simple blanket-and-towel arrangement. As with film developing this time of year, cooling the chemistry down to the proper temperature was a pain, but that was the biggest trial of the afternoon – I’ll take it. Trays out, safelight on its perch, tongs at the ready, we got to it.

With guidance, I did well enough. I made a few boneheaded moves – mixing up tongs, placing paper on the easel wrong-side up (made an interesting ghostly image) and such. A couple of the runs took quite a few tries to dial in the proper exposure, but I didn’t mind. Like seeing that first strip of negatives come out of the tank, watching an image quickly rise in the developer under the red glow gave me a charge. I don’t know what I thought would be so daunting – it’s easier than film, really, and you get as many chances as you need to get it right. My reward for a few hours’ work was a small batch of prints that I’d consider a passable first effort.

The next day, my son and I made another set of attempts, and came up with an even better batch (shown above). We accomplished one of them – a tonally-complex architectural shot of a passage at UCLA’s Royce Hall – in a lucky single pass. The results so far are easily good enough to set me on a quest for mastery of the process. Next time, I need to work out the system of filters on that enlarger so that I can control the contrast of the prints, which seems to be the trickiest thing.

Adam is 11 years old today. He’s everything a Dad could wish for, and I’m very lucky to have him in my life.

He’ll celebrate with his friends next weekend, but this year’s portraits are already on their way to family all over the country. Like last year, we went out to a local park for a natural-light posing session with the 5D and the RB67. The digital result is above, and the film below.

Though I was pleased with the results from last year’s experiment with WHCC (I’ve used them since), based on a number of recommendations, I decided to try the services offered by Mpix. Apart from the good reviews from friends, I really liked one of the Mamiya frames and wanted to include it as the second shot in the family package so I was interested in their True B&W Paper process.

The Mpix order flow was easy, and all of the options were clear. I chose the Endura Metallic option on the color prints, the True B&W  for the other, and the die-cut corners for wallets. Post-order communication was good, and production and shipping were speedy. The prints arrived on-time and nicely-packaged. The colors pop on the metallics, and the depth and gloss are nice. The matte black-and-white processing lived up to the promise, so I’ll probably put more work through it in the near future. The price was comparable to WHCC and other services I’d shopped – a little higher on some items, lower on others. Overall, a great experience and I can join the satisfied customer chorus.

Ordinarily, the order would have included a larger print to frame and place on our family gallery wall. As I was considering print vendors. coincidence dropped an e-mail in my in-box from CafePress and their recently-acquired Canvas On Demand service, offering half-off a gallery-wrap canvas print. I took the chance and ordered an 11×14. The result was not bad for the price I paid, but the assembly quality was not up to the standard of some gallery wraps I’ve seen. If I want another, I’ll probably look elsewhere.

The boy and I had some time to ourselves this afternoon, so we decided to play around a bit with imagery. A locked-off tripod, manual settings, three shirts, sunglasses and a bit of Photoshop layer compositing – this is the oldest trick in the book, but we had fun with it.

I managed to assemble a cardboard pinhole camera (will test after the glue dries) and homemade-dough sausage, olive and mushroom pizza. It was a day for making.

Adam at 10 (on film)

Got my first roll of color 120 — Kodak Portra 160NC — through the Mamiya and processed. Since I’m not at the point where I’m developing my own color film (and I don’t know that I want to, due to the complexity), I took it in to A&I near my office in Hollywood. This is the first time I’ve used a “pro” photo lab, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I got friendly service, on-time delivery, nice packaging and presentation, and slightly cheaper than nearby alternatives (but still quite a lot more costly than 35mm at Costco). Color negative film is a wonderful thing, but black and white will continue to dominate my analog output.

I’m always apprehensive trying a new thing or taking a next step with this stuff, but it turned out nicely. My metering with a second camera was close enough, and I’m getting more familiar with the gear. I’ll eventually acquire a dedicated meter, but for now I’m OK and won’t be so intimidated by the arrangement.

This is another shot from the session mentioned in a previous post. Compare and contrast, film and digital — I think this one has a slightly warmer tone. I might get a big print made.

Adam at 10

Almost every year of Adam’s life, we’ve had traditional portraits taken at the typical mall department-store studio for distribution to the family around his birthday. We’ve been pleased enough with the somewhat generic results, but the whole thing is costly and has produced nothing special.  Considering circumstances, I should be doing that job now, right? I made a first attempt last year, but I was not happy with the product at all. Pose, light, color – none of it made me feel like it was a worthy annual event.

This year, even though my personal expectations were low (confidence issues), I thought I came up with a much better set of photographs. We found a nice outdoor setting across from the local park, the light was pleasing, I took my time and Adam was relaxed. I have the say the 70-200mm f/2.8 did its part, too. That’s the “smiling” version above, and there’s a secondary “serious” pose to go with it.

Sure that I had a couple of good captures, I thought about getting them out on paper. One of the bigger frustrations last time around was the printing. I have a great wide-format Epson photo printer that usually surprises me with its output, but the images were so “off” that I couldn’t make a decent print no matter what I tried. This year’s photos didn’t have those issues, but I was still worried about producing a professional-looking package.

Thinking I might want to know the options for professional printing, I started investigating options a few months ago. As busy as things have been, I’d only gotten as far as reading reviews. I’d heard White House Custom Colour (WHCC) mentioned on the Photofocus podcast (they’re a sponsor of the show), and the blurb says they offer a no-strings-attached five 8×10 prints for free to listeners of the show. As it turns out, that deal is open to anyone wanting to check them out, regardless how you hear about it. They don’t even ask for a credit card up front, so I went ahead and put through a mix of color and B&W. I have to say, I was impressed – working for free, they hustled and turned around the order in two days. The quality was good, and the prints arrived with a set of paper and texture samples.

After that experience, it made sense to take the next step and work with them on the portrait package. I used their ROES software to do the image upload and configure things, and my order was ready in minutes. I went with the basic lustre paper and a variety of sizes to fit the needs of relatives. Free two-day shipping was the default, and overnight and custom packaging options were available. After a little set-up and the entry of my payment info, my order was on it way.

Since I ordered before mid-afternoon on Sunday, the order arrived via UPS from their facility in Fresno on Tuesday afternoon. The results were great. I didn’t do anything special with color management, but the color and brightness were true and consistent. The order was nicely packaged, with each size in its own sleeve. The wallet-sized prints come 8-up to a sheet, and were individually die-cut with rounded corners.

All in all, a very pleasing transaction. The family loved the photos, and I was proud to give them. I’ll definitely use WHCC again, and recommend them as well.

]]> http://www.zombieprocess.net/archives/640/feed 0 http://www.zombieprocess.net/archives/622 http://www.zombieprocess.net/archives/622#comments Thu, 08 Apr 2010 05:31:32 +0000 GZ http://www.zombieprocess.net/?p=622

Húsvéti nincs színe

Had a nice, relaxing Easter with the family. Saw in-laws and my sisters, ate a really good meal, colored eggs (well, I didn’t – I never do) and finished a roll of 220.

For once, I came up with a nearly-flawless strip of negatives. Since I started using the Mamiya, every roll has suffered some sort of ruinous problem – scratches or streaks that rendered many frames unusable, and required a lot of healing brush work on the rest. Research and friendly interviews pointed to either bad news happening in the film magazine or drying issues after development.

This time, I made certain that I used a different insert, and I decided to forgo squeegeeing prior to drying, just in case that had some effect. To give the strip a good long hang-space, I suspended it whole from a boom mic stand positioned in the bathtub (very rock & roll, I know).

The combination worked, so I’m sticking with it. Of course, things are never that easy. When it came to scanning, most frames were afflicted with Newton Rings and had to be redone.

I’ll get the hang of it eventually.

Adam captures a classic automobile in San Dimas

Photographer: Adam
Film: Fomapan 400
Camera: Olympus Stylus Epic point-and-shoot
Developed by: Adam

(Adam is 9 years old)

Adam adds developer to the tank.

Adam helped with the developing. Best kid ever.

Moving with the Tradition

On September 19, I got the chance to cover the 13th annual Soboba Inter-tribal Pow Wow for the Valley Chronicle. It was the first work I done for the paper since June, and I was ready to take something on. The event presented a chance to capture some great color with the DSLRs and to try some new film things out with the AE-1. I even deployed the bbf for a little while near the end of my time there.

The pow wow was held in the arena at the Soboba Casino, on Indian land near San Jacinto. The ceremonies were stunning, filled with color and sound. I got to see the purifying Gourd Dance, a “tiny-tots” pow wow featuring the youngsters in full costume, and the dance, drum and song competitions. The highlight of the day was the Grand Entry, a procession of hundreds of people, from little children to tribal elders, all in the finest and most ornate ceremonial dress.

I started the day by asking the event’s chairman for permission to shoot, seeking any rules I might need to know about covering things respectfully. I mingled and did my best to be unobtrusive, and used the 30D with the long lens more than anything else. After getting photos to accompany specific story points for the paper, I let myself go and shot whatever I found appealing.

The selects I sent off to the Chronicle are here. The editor chose seven photos, and I hope to see two or three of those published tomorrow.

Along with the work for the paper, I wanted to try some new things with film. Since I’m developing black and white film, I decided to try push processing. With that in mind, I picked up some more Arista Premium 400 with the aim of shooting at 1600. Unfortunately, I underestimated the amount of light in the arena. I had counted on a solid roof, but the cover was a translucent American flag-styled canopy with substantial gaps between the panels that striped the faux-turf floor with sunlight, making it look like a football field. With my lack of experience at the processing technique, it wasn’t the right situation for success.

Despite those problems, I did manage to pull a handful of images out of the tank – fewer than 25% of the 48 exposures – that showed surprising contrast and a nice level of grain. Those that worked are among some of the best-looking photos I have ever taken. You can see a slide show of Soboba images from Flickr here.

All Shook Up

I’m hooked.

More self-developed stuff from travels around Hollywood.