My Daughter's Portrait

[Raffay]

My Daughter


Razzel 900, Rodenstock 127mm
Fuji Neopan Acros 100
Developed in D23

Please comment on anything you like...I am here to learn

 

[Bill Burk]

Hi Raffay,

That's a beautiful portrait, her smile is captivating.

 

[Michael W]

Very good. I can't see anything wrong with it that I can mention. Keep going.

 

[Raffay]

Another one



Please comment as much as possible technical points, that will improve my pictures.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

I would have gotten down on her level to shoot this one, not only to make her the main subject of the photo but also to avoid cropping out the ends of her feet. This would also have benefitted from some kind of fill light, maybe just a big reflector, because she's in shadow.

 

[Kevin Caulfield]

Two words. Consider subscribing.

 

[Raffay]

Thank you everyone for your comments. Trying to improve with every picture I take, and the comments help a lot.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

View attachment 76084
My Daughter


Razzel 900, Rodenstock 127mm
Fuji Neopan Acros 100
Developed in D23

Please comment on anything you like...I am here to learn

you don't need advice. you are doing just fine and better than most;certainly better than I with portraits;beautiful girl and a fantastic picture;well done indeed!

 

[cliveh]

The background is slightly distracting and a darker background may improve impact, but apart from that almost perfect (the model helps). Oh yes and you may show slightly more space to the right rather than the left

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

Nice! Hope you get a chance to print it in the darkroom.

 

[Raffay]

The background is slightly distracting and a darker background may improve impact, but apart from that almost perfect (the model helps). Oh yes and you may show slightly more space to the right rather than the left

It's difficult to find dark backgrounds in natural settings, this is something I always struggle with - any thoughts? The reason it is cramped towards the right is because in the original picture my three year old son is sitting next to her. But as usual he moved and came out blur, so had to cut him out. He has promised me to stay still this coming weekend.

Cheers

Raffay.

 

[Raffay]

Nice! Hope you get a chance to print it in the darkroom.

No darkroom no enlarger. A question off topic here, 4x5 enlargers are difficult to find here, and also they are way too big to fit in my house. 35mm I guess are available and I believe they are small to fit in a closet, right? So I was researching 35mm and Leica M3 seems to a camera that one should try at least once in a lifetime. So if the darkroom print is going to be very much improved compared to scanning that I am doing is it worth to go that way?

Cheers

Raffay

 

[Raffay]

you don't need advice. you are doing just fine and better than most;certainly better than I with portraits;beautiful girl and a fantastic picture;well done indeed!

Thank you.

 

[Bill Burk]

No darkroom no enlarger. A question off topic here, 4x5 enlargers are difficult to find here, and also they are way too big to fit in my house. 35mm I guess are available and I believe they are small to fit in a closet, right? So I was researching 35mm and Leica M3 seems to a camera that one should try at least once in a lifetime. So if the darkroom print is going to be very much improved compared to scanning that I am doing is it worth to go that way?

Cheers

Raffay

Within your closet at home, you can experience the fun and see the beauty of black and white printing without any equipment - by making contact prints from your 4x5 negatives.

A Leica is nice, but don't get caught up in "the grass is greener" - it's not the camera, it's what's on both sides...

 

[Raffay]

Within your closet at home, you can experience the fun and see the beauty of black and white printing without any equipment - by making contact prints from your 4x5 negatives.

A Leica is nice, but don't get caught up in "the grass is greener" - it's not the camera, it's what's on both sides...

Now this is news "contact printing" I have heard of it in forums but I thought it requires an enlarger as well. What is it and how is it done?

 

[RalphLambrecht]

put the negative directly onto the emulsion side of the paper and a sheet of glass to keep it all in contact and nice and flat.then expose with filtered light from the enlsrger;doneobviously you need a larger negative for this, but the results are typically beter than an enlarged small negative;no grain;better tonality; well worth a try for LF-camera owners4x5 is a min size i'm afraid8x10 and larger are spectacular;dodging and burning can be a bit tricky.

 

[Raffay]

put the negative directly onto the emulsion side of the paper and a sheet of glass to keep it all in contact and nice and flat.then expose with filtered light from the enlsrger;doneobviously you need a larger negative for this, but the results are typically beter than an enlarged small negative;no grain;better tonality; well worth a try for LF-camera owners4x5 is a min size i'm afraid8x10 and larger are spectacular;dodging and burning can be a bit tricky.

How is the negative exposed on the paper, I mean using light but how much light and for how long, is there a guide available?

 

[baachitraka]

Like Ralf said, you can place negative directly on the paper and put a heavy transparent glass over it and test with different times like 8s, 16s, 32s and so on.

You can also fine tune by exposing intermediate times like 8s, 10.66s, 13.33s, 16s, 18.66s, 21.33s, 24s...

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

Some of the most beautiful prints are contact prints. I think Ed Weston's didn't have an enlarger, but just a light bulb to make his prints. If you're curious about enlarging, try using a community darkroom first.

 

[Raffay]

I know this is a very stupid question, but since I have no clue so I have to ask. When I expose the paper under a light bulb nothing will show on the paper right. Then I assume that I will have to develop the paper again like the negative. So what developer and fixer are used. As I mentioned before film photography is gone from Pakistan and we don't get any chemistry, I mean the standard one. I only get metol and chemicals to make tf3. Would these same work for paper also, and how do I determine development time for paper is that mentioned on the paper like on film boxes. One of my cousin is in Toronto these days and would be coming back I am thinking if it is possible to get all this done at home then I might ask him to get a pack of Ilford paper for me... As I said we don't get anything here

 

[baachitraka]

You do not see anything on the paper after it is exposed to the light. So, next step is to develop with paper developers. Please, do not ask which one is the best.

After development, you may pass it into a stop bath and finally into the fixer(must).

 

[Cheryl Jacobs]

The light is just fine for a portrait, but the tones are very flat.

 

[Raffay]

The light is just fine for a portrait, but the tones are very flat.

What can I do to improve tones? Is it the developer or something else.

 

[Raffay]

You do not see anything on the paper after it is exposed to the light. So, next step is to develop with paper developers. Please, do not ask which one is the best.

After development, you may pass it into a stop bath and finally into the fixer(must).

I will not ask which is the best developer, but would like to know if there is something that I can develop mixing readily available chemicals.

 

[L Gebhardt]

There are plenty of recipes for paper developers that you can mix yourself. I like Ansco 130 the best. It keeps very well, so you don't need to constantly mix up new, and it has some of the nicest tones on the warm tone paper I like. The recipe is posted in many places, but here's one such link: (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

I don't know how readily available the chemicals will be in Pakistan, but I imagine you could mail order them.

I personally don't think 4x5 is big enough for contact printing, so before you get setup for this make sure you will be happy with the 4x5 inch prints. If I had limited space I would go with either a medium format system like a Hasselblad and a smaller medium format enlarger, or an 8x10 camera and make contact prints. It really depends how you want to work. I know it's heretical to say on this board, but you can also produce excellent work scanning and printing digitally. I still like darkroom prints better, but at some point the reality of space and chemical availability must be factored in.