Recovering a muddy image.

I was booked by Richie for a 1-1 darkroom workshop on Sunday.  It was a real pleasure to work with someone who had taken the trouble to learn how to correctly expose film, it makes life so much easier in the darkroom.  He explained that he took readings from the shadows and the sky then averaged the mid range for the exposure.  He was also looking at using different ISOs as a base for controlling tones for different conditions.  After processing a couple of his rolls of 120 film I could see that he was producing some pretty good negs.

We printed onto resin coated paper from is medium format negs with some excellent results.  He managed to keep detail in rapidly flowing water, at long exposure, while retaining the shadows.  While doing this I thought it would be an idea to demonstrate some of the advantages of fibre based paper.  I had been given a very old box of Report-Rapid 111 N by John Brewer so I used that.  The first print was rather dull and muddy, even using a hard mix of Dr Beers to dev it in.  I showed that by using a bath of Farmers Reducer to clear up the highlights, followed by Selenium Toner to darken the shadows and remove the warmth, you could get a reasonable print.

Orignal

Farmers Reducer and Moersch MT1 Selenium Toner

It's been a while!

I realised this morning that I hadn't blogged for a long time.  Doesn't mean things have been quiet, far from it.  The Engine Room opened fully in January, still a little rough around the edges but everything is now up and running.  The first show was just the Forest Nation, in an edited form, from last May just to get things started.  February saw an exhibition of the work of Mina Ahmed, looking at derelict and abandoned buildings, along with some high level night shots.  Yesterday we hung a set of images from some Level 3 photography students, more about that in a later blog.

Apart from having a base for me to work from, my intention for the engine room was to give other photographers a chance to develop their skills.  There is a small band of regular visitors building and it is really nice to see the place busy.  In addition to individuals there have been groups from a Level 3 Graphics and Animation course coming to use the darkroom, plus students from a Foundation Degree doing some historical processes, both from The Manchester College.

One person seems to have taken to the place more than any other, Nicola Pass.  Nicola is gradually working her way through just about every process offered, but more than that she has started to use each process for its merits and to suit the subject.  This means that she will use anything from digital, through film to wet plate for the strengths that it adds to the subject.  Yesterday she spent the entire day in the darkroom printing from 6x6 film, and progressed at a amazing rate. It makes all the work worthwhile when you see such passion for photography.