Marle-Hill Substation Prints. (5)
These were my results from my first session in the darkroom, As you can see from the many test strips and exposure cards, I was very focused on trial and error with this set of prints as I had not yet developed the ‘gut feeling’ and logical deduction that one develops as their hours in the Darkroom increase. This was before I had been introduced to split grading and as a result, many of my test cards came out very black and grey and all-around pretty flat. In my later test strips that I was working on once returning to this print in the following session. I had some issues with the corners of my paper getting slightly caught up on the easel arms and this lifted the paper only a few millimetres off the plate, this was hard to see under the red light and so I had a few prints come out with focusing issues as noted on the cards, I also had some issues with light leaks / fogging on my paper. However, by the time I had produced the 5 prints I was still happy with the visual impact that some of these ‘faults’ had created on the paper. Regrettably, when it came to mounting and framing these up, due to the off-centre framing on my part, they didn’t sit well in their frames and looked to off-balance to work in the float mount style frame. This was when following multiple instances of feedback stating the visual style of the printed contact sheet, I decided to frame that up instead.
James Street Prints (6)
These prints were done further along my time in the darkroom, by this point I had become more comfortable in the logical process of adding or subtracting time to my exposures along with split grading my paper to maximise its tonal ranges. This negative in particular was harder to balance owing to its imbalance in light and dark tones. With one side being very dark and the other much lighter, I employed the use of dodging with some spare paper trimmings just to feather in more light to the lighter side to try and burn in some darkness there without losing the darker sides details.
Barbican, Medium Format test. (1)
Having also a selection of medium format 6x6 shots from around the barbican in London. I was curious to test out the square format with some strong bordering as this was something I had seen in others prints and thought looked effective and complimented the format well. I did some test strips, that came out very grey due to my lack of split grading, something I had not researched at the time. I also only had a 50mm lens for my enlarger at the time and so this resulted in some heavy loss of focus in a vignette pattern as marked in the square test card. This is something I will defiantly return to in the future as the quality and atmosphere of medium format really lends itself to print.
Telegraph Pole Prints. (5)
These were some of the last prints I had time to make given the circumstances and I was pleased with my dodge/burn skills used in getting the sky to darken, the mountain in the background to come forward whilst preserving details in the foreground. Split grading was necessary for this print to make sure that there was definition in the finer details like the shadows in the grass and the lighter areas of the pathway and details of the such to make the print ‘pop’ more, whilst retaining the desired bleakness.
Empty Seats Prints. (6)
These prints were done around the middle of my time in the darkroom and here I was beginning to work on and develop my split grading skills as the negative itself was not especially high contrast owing to the nature of the scene in which I was shooting, with some tests being far more successful than others. I was pleased with the levels and details I was able to draw out from the negative. Details in the concrete flooring were brought out and overall the contrast between the tops and backs of the seats worked well.
Helensborough Pier Prints. (5)
Whilst these were the first set of prints I completed, they have turned out to be the strongest of them all. It was through making these prints that I was introduced to split-grading. By exposing my print with grade 0-1 light to etch in detail before rolling it up to max 5 to burn in the shadows and blacks. I played around with reversing the order too, however this resulted in losing some finer details like the spots on the ground and the shiny-ness of the puddles on the floor, this was also when I learned about leaving my prints in the dev for much longer than I thought ok, as obviously, the red light of the darkroom made it hrader to assess how black my print was going and to trust in the ‘2-minute rule’ to make sure my blacks were as black as the could go. The difference between my printing before both of these skills were introduced is clear when you look at the flatness and the nasty grey wash of my first test print.
More Images from the printing process
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