Salisbury #4 Harnham Mill

Classic British landscape. Definitely worth pursuing for the best tonality and framing.

Yes unfortunately the best (and easiest to print) of the 3 frames has a mark on the negative. This one is more awkward. Constable painted the cathedral from these meadows. I may recompose it to cut out one of the trees on the right. If I do that the dodge may not be necessary

Might I make a suggestion? On some of these 'challenged' negatives, showing the actual negative might be informative, in the truest sense. - David Lyga

@David Lyga Yes I can do that but the best I can do is the negative on a piece of white paper with some light behind (I don’t have a light box). Is there a way to include an image in this discussion? I have never worked out how to do it.

Also I am challenged with the technicalities of digital. The point I wanted to make is that I find myself wondering whether there is either 1) adequate detail in the shadows but the high negative contrast causes the paper 'to choose' to show the highlights properly and forces the shadows to go dark (as if they are not really represented adequately on the negative) or 2) there simply is not enough shadow detail on the negative because it was severely underexposed. - David Lyga

I can answer that. There is adequate shadow detail in the negative. If there had not been then my dodge (which is of the shrubs/bushes on the right and part of the adjacent tree) would not have revealed any detail. Without the dodge those areas are black. It's the contrast of the negative which is due to sudden bright sun through a gap in the clouds (and reflected light from the water). I did reduce the printing contrast to 1.5 but any more than that and it's a bit too pencil drawing for me. I was tired so I shut my darkroom up for the evening. I may have a chance tomorrow but I have a lot to do not least a pile of shirts to iron for work and no end of bits of paper for my tax return!!

There certainly appears to be the right amount of detail in those dark areas in my eyes. I think this is on a fabulous walk which just after this scene will take you to a pub and it was there that an artist was trying to emulate Constable and to my very amateur eyes was doing a good job. No doubt the haunt of many an artist over the years.

It's a hang-on-the-wall pic of at least 12x16 in my eyes.

@pentaxuser You’re right it’s a delightful walk and we went on a Sunday. The walk is from the city centre via Harnham Bridge and the “Town Path” over the water meadows to the old mill at Harnham which is now a lovely pub. We had 2 pints in the beer garden and walked back to Salisbury. A perfect bimble. Little did I know that by dinner time I would be caught up in a Novichok scare!!

Thank you. Yes I do have a few sheets of 12"x16". Maybe I should use them!

Right, in your specific case the shadow detail manifested with the dodging; obviously, it was there in the negative in the first place.

It is the prints we see posted whereby there is no explanation about this, whatsoever. In those cases, when there is inadequate shadow detail in the print, one honestly does not know whether or not there was adequate shadow detail in the negative to begin with, because even if there was, if the negative was too contrasty the print's shadow detail would revert to darkness in order to allow the print's highlights to show proper delineation. - David Lyga

@David Lyga Yes absolutely. I like the picture and I will work to get it right when I can. One option is to treat the sky separately (it has already had a burn anyway). By doing that I would get the main body of the picture right, without regard to the sky, and then just burn in the sky more. It's a shame the best negative has a mark on it. The 3 frames I have were taken about 30 seconds apart but the light was changing so fast that in this frame the trees on the right are in shadow. The trouble with burning the sky at 0 is that it will make the clouds grey which is not the intention.