35mm, mainly. Sometimes have done MF, but usually just 35. Both color and B&W. Usually don't print, but scan. If I see something nice, then I have a wet print, usually an 8x12, done.
Where do you get your printing done at?
I have been told that Costco is a great place. It's cheap and it uses Fuji Crystal archive material.
From the prints I seen, it looks not bad. A 16x20 print that cost the photographer 5.)) plus.
I rarely make silver prints...I have been captured by the alt side. The last silver prints I made I bleached completely and then brought them back using Dektol on a paint brush. Alt has just completely twisted me...LOL!
I have even been making small little platinum prints from 120 negatives!
I know someone who does make Platinum with 6x7 negs. Neet Stuff! I like it when you have to step close to see what's there. I even did contact color prints for a show of small prints.
Someone should revise that. Hmmmm?
"I have even been making small little platinum prints from 120 negatives!
Vaughn""
Some of the nicest small work I've seen was by a person doing small unbound portfolios of silver-printed contact prints from 6x7 negatives.
Done as a set of images in a boxed-portfolio, you sat and viewed these small images at in intimate distance. Quite different than a sheet of contact prints, with each image on a 5x7 sheet of paper (lots of border ;-)
I have 6 rolls of 120 (6x7 and 6x9) from a recent trip to Yosemite that I want to make platinum prints from -- I had left my 8x10 holders at home accidently...discovered 400 miles into the 500 mile journey to the Park. I had gone primarily to make carbon prints in the Ansel Adams gallery darkroom in preperation for the carbon workshop I am giving there on April 14 to 18...so my mind was focused there as I was packing up the car. But the small format was fun to work with...very freeing. Those negs will have to wait until after the workshop, though.
I started making the small platinums with the idea of making a couple copies of a handmade book of our summer adventures...but while that still is possible, the scope will go beyond last summer. We are planning a 5-week cross-country trip, and I'll bring the Rolleiflex with this in mind. I have a few posted on this site.
I like the very intimate scale of the small prints -- even 5x7 can be experienced on a very personal level this way.
I made silver gelatin prints...mostly 16x20 from 4x5's...for 15 years before starting on the alternative path. I saw my printing style similar to a stone carver working on a stone that gets darker as one cuts into the stone. I would make my base exposure and slowly use light as a chisel to work the image. I could spend 15 minutes or more burning a print down to what I wanted. A very enjoyable process. I would have a 10 to 12 hour working session on one image...usually ending up with three good copies of the print. I would not keep printing notes. If I ever came back to the image (which was not often done), I wanted to start relatively fresh and rediscover the making of the final print.
Alt printing signaled a very significant change in my photography. Instead of the hours spent shaping an image to get the viewers' eyes to move within the image in the manner I wanted to bring out the full impact, I now print "straight" (no dodging or burning) and concentrate on the original seeing of the image in front of me to do what I once accomplished through burning with the silver prints. This forces me to see more intensly in the field and my ability to see has benefited from this.
I went to Sauvie Island yesterday with the 8x10 and shot 10 sheets. I can't decide whether to process them for Alternative or Non Alternative printing. I like the paper and the feel of Platinum but I also like the resolution and clarity of a contact silver print. I wish the negs could match so I wouldn't have to shoot two negs each. I have never liked working with the brown staining pyro and it never lives up to it's reputation for me.
Dennis
Really? I'm a big convert to Pyro. Love the range it gives me and the tones as well.
Hate to say this but have you thought of scanning a neg then making a digi neg for Platinum? Or you could make a dupe neg.
Re Dennis's comment about negatives: Has anyone tried making masks that are specific to a process? I've been playing with that idea. You'd still get the 'real emulsion contact with paper' results, with the benefit of tweaking the contrast curve to fit the need at hand. (I think/hope.) If this is an old question, already thoroughly covered, be gentle with me! I've been a hermit lately, time-traveling to the 1890's, and it's amazing how fast the modern world changes when you're not paying attention.
Hope everyone had a great weekend. What gorgeous weather! I finally was in the right place at the right time with the right camera to get some nice shots of the dogwoods in the Cascades.
While I have responded about there being people out here who may not be using alternative processes, but who do read the postings, I did neglect to answer Don's original question.
At this time, 16 mm subminiature, 35 mm, 6 cm by 4.5 cm, 6 cm by 6 cm, 3.25 by 4.25 "instant film," and 4 by 5.
Denise, one of my students in my last carbon workshop had a negative of a waterfall. It made a nice carbon print, but the water of the falls grayed out too much. So partway through the exposure he took his contact printing frame and a Sharpie and drew on the frame's glass over the waterfall...masking it out. What a neat idea. That is one one the reason I like teaching workshops -- one can learn a bunch of neat stuff!
Not exactly what you were asking about, but still neat!
35, 6X7, 6X9, 4X5. Print with an LPL 4550 XL; however, I don't print well...yet.
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