Mono Postcard Project

[Ragtime Clown]

I have decided that I am going to recreat a collection of street scenes of my hometown I have in my collectiion. What I intend doing is visit each postcard scene as it was in the 1920s - 1950s and compose it as it was way back then.

What I want to do is find a good lab who can develop my 35mm film and print on heavier grade paper than standard. I like the look and finish of fibre based papers, are there good labs who can provide this service. Who are they?

 

[Mike Wilde]

I fear that you will have a long search. You will need to find a custom lab, and be prepared to pay. It could be cheaper to buy up a darkroomat an estate sale etc and do it yourself.

The other option is to seek out postcard stickers, that you stick to the back of machine processed prints to turn them into postcard type products.

I print for the postcard exchange here on fb from time to time, and I still paste a backing sheet to the back, usally using a drymount press and drymount adhesive.

 

[pentaxuser]

If your circumstances prevent you from ever developing and printing then you have my sympathy but your enthusiasm for this project suggests strongly that you'd want to try DIY if at all possible.

If you can have a go yourself then do so. FB paper has problems of washing and drying that RC doesn't and IMHO RC is much the easier paper to start with. Ilford does RC postcard paper as part of its Portfolio range which is heavy weight paper.

If you must use a lab and can find one which actually does B&W processing using B&W paper and not RA4 colour paper and it doesn't stock FB it might be possible to offer them your own Portfolio RC postcard paper for printing just for your run of negs.

Best of luck. I think you have a great project on your hands

pentaxuser

 

[Neal]

Dear Ragtime Clown

MPIX will print on b&w RA-4 paper.

If you only want a few postcards of a number of different images, these are fun: Dead Link Removed I use them to send photos to my 5 year old nephew (I'm sure that will get old soon :>) ).

If you want that real post card look, there may be no choice other than to go to a printer.

Neal Wydra

 

[Ragtime Clown]

Today I took my new FE-2 Nikon for a test drive and although I only took a few shots it was a lovely experience to be using a real camera again loaded with Ilford FP-4, my old favourite. It reminded me of the buzz I had for photography in the late 80's that survived until the arrival of digital. It killed off my passion for photography and now an almost new Nikon D-50 sits redundant in my hold-all and the wife can keep my Canon Ixus5 for holidays.

I have yet to break the news gently to her that my Leica slide projector and slides are coming out of the attic again!

 

[John Shriver]

mpix.com prints B&W on real Ilford silver paper. But not postcard weight.