Churchyard Cross #1 (Grade 5)

Congratulations to your new darkroom. May the darkness be with you.

Karl-Gustaf

Good news Svenedin - glad to see you are making prints. makes me jealous, wish i could print more - only contact printing right now. Like K-G, i find darkness is great - but doesn't quite work for me in this otherwise bright scene. The G2 is way too soft. Do you have a 3.5 filter?? Or, split grade printing? Got @RalphLambrecht latest book now, and some articles on internet. Neat stuff, i am itching to jump into it.

Congratulations !

Thank you. It's been quite a journey getting the darkroom set up again. It isn't really ideal as a darkroom, it's just my small home office but it works. I still had all the equipment but actually getting the room dark took ages. I had to have a blackout blind made to measure but it wasn't completely black out so there are heavy lined curtains over the top. There is another curtain (a door curtain) across the outside of the door. There is no water in there so a bucket has to hold the prints until I wash them in the bath. A cheap folding table with a plastic top is just big enough for 3 trays.

Yes I do have a 3.5 filter and that might be the way to go. I prefer this harder imager over the soft one but it is too harsh. I could maybe expose the whole photo at grade 3.5 and then burn the cross in a bit more using a card mask with a hole in it and playing that over the cross.

I had forgotten how annoying dust is with my condenser enlarger! It's been great fun and I have so many images to print that I must stop taking new pictures or I will never catch up.

Well it illustrates to any newcomer to printing how much difference there is between grade 2 and 5. In terms of what is the right grade I'd endorse what michaelorr has said. It would be very interesting to try say G3 or G3.5 to see which is the best and then try split grade to see if this gives the extra "magic" touch that no single grade or half grade can give

Svenedin, Bravo! On both the print, and the darkroom. I like the composition and detail. I also have great respect for your sense of historic stuff, so any stories that go w/ the shots will be eagerly devoured. 'Nice shot!