After seeing this photo again of my father I became a bit haunted by it. It is a 5x7 negative with a slight bit of movement during the long exposure (dad moved). The feel of the image made during dads last week of life haunts me, the hand haunts me (always loved dads hands), the stare haunts me. I wish my father and I could spend more real life time together. I am going to spend some different type time tonight with him, printing this photograph. If I have time to finish, spot and mount it. I might even try to include it in Rosebud. Will see how it prints out tonight.
Here is the first attempt at the dad hand/stare 5x7. It was made on the Durst 8x10 enlarger with 130 magenta (max contrast). The basic exposure was 120 seconds with a dodge of the face of 50 seconds. I also did a dodge of 30 seconds over the face and body-hand area. There was also a 50 second dodge of the upper highlight. To accomplish this I did 2 handed dodging using the foot switch for part of the main exposure. I burned the edges with a card for20 seconds. I then used a mask to burn certain white areas like the bandage for 50 and 30 seconds. I wanted to print the neg on Ilford's 16x20 cool tone fibre but could not find my single box in that size. I ended up using a decent not great standby 16x20 Ultrafine Silver Eagle paper which is also very cool.
Being with dad and working in the darkroom all night was a rewarding experience, I felt in a zone tonight. Wish I could show dad his print. I will tell him about it when I visit his grave next time.
One of the cool things about combining digital and analog is that after I scan a neg I can play with it in photo shop to see what looks are possible. Then I can use that finished adjusted scan to inspire my darkroom print. I am using the above photo scan of my father as a source material for my darkroom analog printing work tonight. The finished analog print will end up looking similar to the scanned photo shop effort, I hope! Except of course that it will be on a rich beautifully vibrant piece of fibre photographic paper, not a digi print out thingy.
Even at max magenta contrast on my Durst colour head I could not get the same contrast as my digital version scan. Maybe that is because of the photo paper or the beautiful tonality of the large 5x7 Tri-x negative. My other option is to use the Durst 138S 5x7 enlarger I got free from Jack. That enlarger is a condenser machine which combined with a number 5 filter and straight Dectol should pull up the contrast somewhat. Not sure how this Silver Eagle stuff responds to bleach. Bleaching will also spike up the contrast a bit.
I kind of like this lower contrast version. I will continue to experiment, making a few more prints with this paper and then possibly later with Ilford warm tone.
Update* I ended up making 10 versions of the print on the cheaper Silver Eagle paper (used up my entire box). 10 is a ton of prints, usually I quit at 4-6, especially with the larger sized papers. I was having trouble with the face dodge as it as very touchy. A bit too much dodging and it went all white, too little and I lost the highlight focus area of the photograph. The 2nd attempted print in the above photo is a bit too dodged out on the face. The versions that got too dodged out white are headed for the garbage but I might be able to recover some of the too dark face versions during bleaching. It will be fun to try to see what I can do with the bleach. As Larry Clark said he would print everything very dark then bring it bit by bit out again with the bleach.
I might redo this printing session in the coming days but this time using Ilford warm tone or cool tone (if I can find it) paper. I want to try to get this pic into the show, I feel it is an important photograph and should be exhibited. With one more day tomorrow, plus a work week to do a bit of final darkroom, drying, print flattening, spotting, matting and framing. I might just have enough time to get this done. Next Monday or very early Tuesday I will be on the road to Rosebud.
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| The photo that is haunting my thoughts |
Being with dad and working in the darkroom all night was a rewarding experience, I felt in a zone tonight. Wish I could show dad his print. I will tell him about it when I visit his grave next time.
One of the cool things about combining digital and analog is that after I scan a neg I can play with it in photo shop to see what looks are possible. Then I can use that finished adjusted scan to inspire my darkroom print. I am using the above photo scan of my father as a source material for my darkroom analog printing work tonight. The finished analog print will end up looking similar to the scanned photo shop effort, I hope! Except of course that it will be on a rich beautifully vibrant piece of fibre photographic paper, not a digi print out thingy.
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| 2nd attempt at the print (this digi photo is more contrasty than original) |
I kind of like this lower contrast version. I will continue to experiment, making a few more prints with this paper and then possibly later with Ilford warm tone.
Update* I ended up making 10 versions of the print on the cheaper Silver Eagle paper (used up my entire box). 10 is a ton of prints, usually I quit at 4-6, especially with the larger sized papers. I was having trouble with the face dodge as it as very touchy. A bit too much dodging and it went all white, too little and I lost the highlight focus area of the photograph. The 2nd attempted print in the above photo is a bit too dodged out on the face. The versions that got too dodged out white are headed for the garbage but I might be able to recover some of the too dark face versions during bleaching. It will be fun to try to see what I can do with the bleach. As Larry Clark said he would print everything very dark then bring it bit by bit out again with the bleach.
I might redo this printing session in the coming days but this time using Ilford warm tone or cool tone (if I can find it) paper. I want to try to get this pic into the show, I feel it is an important photograph and should be exhibited. With one more day tomorrow, plus a work week to do a bit of final darkroom, drying, print flattening, spotting, matting and framing. I might just have enough time to get this done. Next Monday or very early Tuesday I will be on the road to Rosebud.
