Old Whaling Church 1830

Nice job with a Rolleicord, all nice and straight. Not easy with WLF. I could never get on with TLR's. Picture does look a bit flat though. Might need a bit less printing exposure and adjustment of paper grade.

It has been a difficult subject for me... Lots of soft white. This is scanned, I haven't yet printed it so when I do I'll see how it comes out and use a different paper grade. I usually use Ilford Multigrade paper, I haven't forayed into any other grades. Do you have any suggestions for paper? This church is usually soft in any photos. I'm getting there with the straightness! It is a challenge, it goes counter to how you want to do it. But it is fast becoming one of my favorite cameras.

I use Ilford multigrade as well. It is excellent paper. When you take the photograph you can try adding some exposure (+1, +2 for instance) when you have a white subject. This overexposes the subject which makes a denser negative (with more contrast) and hence it is more likely to be white than grey on the print. Conversely, with a black subject you can underexpose.

I think when you print this you are just going to have to play a bit with the print exposure to get the church as white as you would like it (but not so little exposure that the highlights are not printed in). Then when the exposure is right you can adjust the contrast with your contrast filters.

Here's a white subject I photographed that was reasonably successful as a print. I've had others that didn't really work out.

https://flic.kr/p/CKGCJy

The image was, I thought, a little over exposed. I adjusted the highlights down during scanning. But here it is untouched, is this better? I'm always afraid of blowing out my highlights... I can see already what you mean!

https://flic.kr/p/21kcs4K

Personally I prefer the unadjusted picture on Flickr.

You are right.