This is the second color negative I've successfully (?) printed. This only took three sheets of paper (the first one took nine).
Now a moment of confession and regret...
This image was selected to be part of the Krappy Kamera XV juried competition and is currently on display at the Soho Photo Gallery in New York. That's the good news. The bad news is that it's a digital enlargement/inkjet print. When it came time to print this photo, I didn't have my RA-4 chemicals mixed and for that matter hadn't begun learning the process, which I'm finding to be anticlimactically easy. So I had the negative scanned by someone with a hi-res scanner, spent hours cloning away dust (long story), endured a few misunderstandings with the printer, and forty-two dollars later, got something that looks acceptable, but decidedly digital.
Last night I was looking at the scan of this print alongside the hi-res scan of the negative, and the difference was staggering. There's much more warmth in the print (even on screen), more soothing tones, and better balance overall. This wasn't a surprise, of course, but I'm now wishing I had put the money toward a pack of larger paper and done it myself.
(BTW: The speck at the top isn't dust but an imperfection of some sort. I need a retouch kit.)
