Tonight is my last night in the darkroom before a week back at work doing security, I have another 6 or 7 hours tonight to print. I just finished off the baby standing image and now am moving on to other, first the masks then the final fibre print. The 34th straight day of darkroom work is going well.
Next neg up is this one of a young Burmese mother giving her daughter a bath in the dump. I found this young mother at the front of one of the small dump wooden homes. You could just feel the love she felt for her young daughter as she bathed her in a small plastic container. The little baby girl was unsure of me, I have 3 or 4 variations of this photograph but liked the eye contact with the baby in this one best.
Update: This neg requires a ton of burning. I spent the last 5 hours on the negative, I am using 3 burning masks plus a lot of edge burning with a card and a tiny bit of dodging on the woman's upper hair. I am making a 4th mask to do additional work on the post on the left side of the photo. I want to burn down the post and the background box to the right of it at least an additional 30 seconds. I also need to burn down to whitish edge areas on the bottom of the post and the edge of the diagonal pole, will try 30 seconds at -1 filtration for that.
I have never used 4 masks on a print before so am entering new ground here, which is a goal in these daily darkroom sessions. Hopefully I am improving as a printer as I try and experiment with these new and exciting things. Below is version #2 of the print of the "Mother giving her baby a bath". I am quite tired but will try one or two more prints before calling it a night.
Update #2: I ended up doing 4 versions of this print tonight, after I saw version 3 I was inspired to make version 4 even thou I was very tired. In the coming days or next week at the latest I will do version 5, this time with a shade more contrast. Ended up working around 9+ hours in the darkroom, time for bed, working security tonight.
Update: This neg requires a ton of burning. I spent the last 5 hours on the negative, I am using 3 burning masks plus a lot of edge burning with a card and a tiny bit of dodging on the woman's upper hair. I am making a 4th mask to do additional work on the post on the left side of the photo. I want to burn down the post and the background box to the right of it at least an additional 30 seconds. I also need to burn down to whitish edge areas on the bottom of the post and the edge of the diagonal pole, will try 30 seconds at -1 filtration for that.
I have never used 4 masks on a print before so am entering new ground here, which is a goal in these daily darkroom sessions. Hopefully I am improving as a printer as I try and experiment with these new and exciting things. Below is version #2 of the print of the "Mother giving her baby a bath". I am quite tired but will try one or two more prints before calling it a night.
Update #2: I ended up doing 4 versions of this print tonight, after I saw version 3 I was inspired to make version 4 even thou I was very tired. In the coming days or next week at the latest I will do version 5, this time with a shade more contrast. Ended up working around 9+ hours in the darkroom, time for bed, working security tonight.
 |
| Version #2 on discontinued Agfa classic fibre. |
 |
| Version #3 now the print is starting to sing. |
