Drainage tunnel

Well....here's something to try perhaps. You have three light areas here, each of which could be the focus of the image. Unless the foreground water covered rocks are most important to you, retaking this again on a cloudy day would subdue the foreground water and still allow the bright little water fall to remain bright. Contrast in the tunnel and surrounding foliage would lessen and the light at the end of the tunnel would likely illuminate the inside of it.

Excellent! You have given yourself a tough assignment. I really see great possibilities in this scene. If you have ready access to the site, why not try several different films and exposure techniques to really learn something from this? I really love Pan F, but for this scene I think it is not the best choice. I would first try using a faster film (HP5 or Tri-X) on a cloudy bright day metering from 18% grey card in the shadow area by the arched opening and give extra 1 stop and 2 stop more exposure beyond that reading. Develop film in 1:3 diluted developer using Ilford's published time & temp chart. Probably you will need to burn in the foreground when you print. I have a large weathered boulder behind my house in a wooded area that I intend to photograph in as many different lighting conditions as possible through the year, using 35mm, 120 and 4x5 films.

Good luck. I hope you will post another shot of this scene soon and let us know how it was accomplished.

So te general consensus is that the neg is unsalvageable That's OK, i have lots of those! I tried putting the tunnel in ZIII and let the highlights fall where they may (rollfilm ...) -- maybe IV would be better. I haven't tried bright cloudy so that's another thing to try (I do like the sun picking out the bubbles, though that's hard to see at this resolution). A moderately heavy overcast just left everything flat.

I would not say that this negative is unsalvageable, but I don't know how the negative looks either. This is a scene with difficult lighting extremes. Take a look at some of Francesco's subjects with extreme lighting variations that he has done so well. I thought you were asking for advise on reshooting to brighten the arched opening. For the current negative you can try lower contrast paper and burn in the water. I would burn in the bright spot at top left corner also.

IMO, the greenery surrounding the entrance to the tunnel is a bit distracting and masks the true source of the little waterfall. i personally like the rocks in the foreground and the translucency of the water and would just suggest a bit of post-scan contrast enhancement as the image is a bit flat. regards: kat~