Van Road Pines Four

Very, very nice. I love the image and am quite intrigued with your process. Could you tell us a little more about Fotokemika Emaks and Arista Lith?

Nice! The brown fits.

Another great shot and can that be stag at the end of the tree line? Would'nt that great.

Cheers
TEX

you're doing it Thomas! nice tonal glow and I like the direction of the view ....

Miles

Very nice, Thomas. You were really in tune with the rhythms of the pines, and your portrayal of the light is perfect.

All the best,
Daniel

Thank you kind folks for your comments.
Rob Vinnedge said: "Could you tell us a little more about Fotokemika Emaks and Arista Lith?"
Fotokemika Emaks is a graded paper made in Croatia. It is for sale in Europe as well as the United States. It's available in Grades 2-4 and it's an absolutely gorgeous paper in standard chemistry, and it's equally beautiful in lith chemistry, which I use. I try to support Fotokemika, as they also make the excellent Efke films, available in all kinds of sizes and kinds.
Arista Lith is an economical 2-part lith developer from Freestyle. Arista is their proprietary brand, and it's usually something re-branded with their name on it.
This particular print is on Grade 2 paper, mainly because it's what I have at the house currently. Grades 3 and 4 are probably better for lith printing, but this is good too. The papers are very very slow, but produce really nice tones with a huge expansive middle tone field.
Lith printing - I use 1+1+30 and about 10% old brown when I print with Arista Lith. I vary exposure and have recently started employing 'flashing' of the paper to control contrast. I also vary the temperature of the developer to bring out different colors. At about 75-80*F things start to get interesting. Everything warms up a little bit, and the development time gets shorter. I don't do anything radical in the darkroom, but I am mindful of how I print when I expose and develop the negatives. I have to confess I winged it a bit for these tree shots, because I had lost my light meter and was going off of one reading I got from a friend in the morning, that saw me through the day. But I try to get exactly box speed out of the film, and then I overdevelop the negatives a little bit to gain more contrast. Pyrocat-MC is compensating, and by overdeveloping I move the whole grayscale up the tonal curve of the film and it becomes a negative that is very easy to print. Pyrocat holds back the highlights enough that I don't usually have to worry about a lot of the highlights being packed together on the shoulder. It works great for me to do it that way, and it suits my printing style like a dream. It's a system that works very well for me.
I hope that helps in understanding how I work.
Thanks again guys, I appreciate your comments a lot. It's great feedback for me!

- Thomas

breathtaking light, Thomas.
Dan

Beautiful print Thomas.
G.

outstanding work Thomas

Wonderful series!