Getting sick of BW

NB23 · Jul 20, 2021

Adrian, there is a trick. All rolls developed together, given they are all the same kind (HP5, for example) will yield the same density.
If you develop 4 rolls in one single tank, all four rolls will therefore need the same base exposure for enlarging. Your test strip will be valid for all four films. You can treat all four films as one single roll of 144 exposures.
This trick saves a lot of time and effort.

Adrian Bacon · Jul 20, 2021

NB23 said:
Adrian, there is a trick. All rolls developed together, given they are all the same kind (HP5, for example) will yield the same density.
If you develop 4 rolls in one single tank, all four rolls will therefore need the same base exposure for enlarging. Your test strip will be valid for all four films. You can treat all four films as one single roll of 144 exposures.
This trick saves a lot of time and effort.

that’s true, however, my collection of negatives spans 400TX, 100TMX, TMY-2, HP5+, Fp4+, panf+, delta 3200, fomapan 100,200, and 400, kentmere 100, and 400, tmz, JCH streetpan, and I’m sure a few I’m missing. All were developed in all manner of developers from D76 full strength to 1+1, to xtol full strength, to 1+1, a bunch in replenished xtol, ilfosol 3, replenished Ilfotec DD, dd-x, Rodinal, etc. you get the picture. Most of them were shot and processed by hand at home before I started my lab.

Nowadays, I keep it down to fomapan 200 as my everyday 35mm point and shoot, and hp5+ for 120, sometimes delta 3200 for 120, and either fomapan 200 or Tmy-2 for sheet, depending on what I’m doing. I have standardized times for each for my personal film, so the contrast is the same across the board. Those negatives are very easy to print. I just don’t have a lot of those relative to my older stuff.

Alan Edward Klein · Jul 20, 2021

NB23 said:
Yeah, seems excessive and yet it’s something pushing me. How can it not? On top of myself believing that my stuff is not half bad, I have accumulated a lot of negatives over the years. And papers. And cameras, enlargers...

It has become a catch-22 situation: lose all the papers in which I have invested a fortune (and being a loser for shooting without going all the way to the end), or stand up and print the stuff. To give a sense to it all.

30 years of accumulated negatives, some real jewels hidden all over the pile, images I have really worked hard for. Yeah, Koudelka’s Gypsies are nice but my stuff is just as nice, and so on. And kids... family. No way I’d just let the negatives die, that would be such half-assed and totally loser of me. And so I started 20 years ago and just never can finish. Just like Forrest Gump when he left for a jog.

So I did all my best on 20x24, then added 16x20, then 11x14... then I found out I had 10 boxes of ilford postcards (1000 sheets), and so I decided to reprint all my best stuff from Paris on those postcards, and so I printed through all 1000 in about 3 weeks...
Then, I found that although I had printed my entire “best-of” xpan collection in 10x24 and 8x16, I understood that it was absolutely a stupid idea because You will have to be crazy to open the bags to look at those (fantastic) prints. It’s the equivalent of a whole day at the gym, let me tell you. So I decided to reprint them in a sexier format: 4x10. Took me about 3 intense months...
And right now I’m onto negatives from 2014-2021 that I have never yet seen, except on contact sheets. It just accumulated, really.

But what made me see that my stuff looks like horror is when I realized that no matter where I go in the world, even the most luxurious places, I always come back with gritty images. Miami beach? Nice girls and cars? What do I come up with? Black and white apocalyptic grittiness. My instagram feels very heavy. I ended noticing that my photography is simply put; heavy. It needs a bit of color and air. Or I don’t know maybe that’s what it’s supposed to be.

But yeah, now it’s a huge pile of shit that will need to be managed.

Aren’t we all into a similar situation, to some extent? Who shoots and develops film just to let the negatives die?

Be selective. Pick your best. Ignore the so-so's and duplicates. Then they'll be special.

gone · Jul 20, 2021

This is not advice, but in my opinion you're burning yourself out. 35 prints a day, 3000 prints to go??? If I were in your place I would do something completely different for a while. Start sketching, take a pottery class, play poker, anything. You CAN get too much of a good thing. Again, this is not advice, this just applies to me.......I'd rather have one really good print that nails it rather than have hundreds of prints that didn't. I'm not running a production business, it's not about quantity numbers.

When I'm drawing, doing pastels, etc, if I get one or two really, really good images out of 50 or 100 I'm perfectly happy. W/ the photography it's more complicated due to all the steps and processes needed to make a photographic print, but it's still the same ratio. If the print doesn't really stand out, in the print drawer it goes. This works for me. It keeps me grounded in reality and on my toes when working. I used to set a minimum of prints I made in a session. Now I stop when it gets tiring, or when I get an equal or better print than the last time I printed. Tomorrow is another day.

TheFlyingCamera · Jul 20, 2021

I'm doing something vaguely akin to what you're doing - I'm going back through my archive of the last 20 years or so of photographs and making palladium prints. Given the nature of the medium, I'm being far more selective than you are and doing a lot of editing before I make my digital negative to print from. I'm also pacing myself. I don't print every day. Thanks to my new UV exposure unit, I can now make up to 14 prints a day, when I've got a full day to dedicate to printing. If I run a session after work in the evening, I can produce 4-5 good prints before it's time to call it a night. But the end goal is to produce some kind of portfolio/book/album of my travel photos. I have a long way to go with it, but I'm making good progress. I've got maybe 60-65 prints made, and another 50 negatives to output from this first batch. Then I've got a 2"+ thick stack of "Random Washington DC" stuff to look through.

Craig75 · Jul 20, 2021

With all due respect, it seems like its doing your head in a bit, which that maratho would do to anyone

It sounds like you need to walk away from darkroom for a bit and do something else.

No-ones negs are masterpieces or anything profound - it's all just meaningless disposable cultural detritus at the end of the day.

NB23 · Jul 20, 2021

Craig75 said:
With all due respect, it seems like its doing your head in a bit, which that maratho would do to anyone

It sounds like you need to walk away from darkroom for a bit and do something else.

No-ones negs are masterpieces or anything profound - it's all just meaningless disposable cultural detritus at the end of the day.

yes exactly.

Craig75 · Jul 20, 2021

NB23 said:
yes exactly.

you'll get back in the groove. like you say a change of media to colour or alt printing or just do something else entirely and you will come back with a new perspective (and probably end up reprinting everything again in a totally different style!)

but def not a loser no matter what you do!

logan2z · Jul 20, 2021

Craig75 said:
it's all just meaningless disposable cultural detritus at the end of the day.

Excuse me while I go stick my head in an oven...

Craig75 · Jul 20, 2021

logan2z said:
Excuse me while I go stick my head in an oven...

whatever turns you on

jtk · Jul 20, 2021

It's good to QUIT sometimes...perhaps later to return...or perhaps not.

DF · Jul 20, 2021

You're in a B&W rut. Happens to us all, and it is wise to take a break from it. Shooting color for awhile is a good remedy, so yah, get out the polarizer filter and shoot away....

pentaxuser · Jul 21, 2021

logan2z said:
Excuse me while I go stick my head in an oven...

Can I offer my oven? There can be few better for apocalyptic grittiness

pentaxuser

Sergey Ko · Jul 21, 2021

35 prints a day! Are You a PRO?
To talk about B\W & Color, some times I also prefer color. The problem is the color print processing is rather difficult for amateur, especially without print processor. Here is something in the middle:

Fedos_2018_06 by Sergey Kozlov, on Flickr

Getting sick of BW

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