My pile of 'prints awaiting comments' was getting a bit too high, so here it goes:
Crispin Ginger Flower- A wonderful image of something I have never seen All of the ginger I have ever seen comes as a root, or ground to a powder.
The lighting of the original still life scene that you imaged well is most appropriately translated into the tones in the print
Mark Barendt- Oahu North Shore- I must confess to liking the framing of the elements in the image, but the print contrast leaves me flat. I think a more powerful image would have been achieved with a higher grade of paper. If the original negative was thin, and hence the image appearing limp, well, sorry. An auto-exposure camera is prone for giving under exposure in these circumstances, being fooled by the bright sun and sand. Dive into Fred Parkers The ultimate exposure tool goggle it, and proceed to expose with the camera set on manual with confidence.
Trond Bird - A neat abstraction of a real life scene. Nice placement of tones, sharp and well focused. The human feet hanging in the edge of the image do give the scene scale, but they are still a bit too distracting for my liking.
Nige Veranda View at night. Nige, you are brave to dig out old b&w negs from when you first got into film. I look back at mine and they are all so bad. I am almost willing to toss them, but I wont due to the memories of the subject matter. From the image it looks like you had a nice vista to look at growing up. My youth, and present day, vistas offer the blandness of suburbia.
Guitstik (I thing- Tennessee postmark) Window Detail of Miners Shack, Bodie CA. Very nice details. Shadow on the mesh curtains, cracks in the dried wood window frame, etc. It certainly shows you what 4x5 can do. Window pane frame slightly offset from print edges frame is a nice touch. Good perspective correction. All that should be straight and square is.
George Nova Scotia So, the prints on old paper, in an envelope disease has spread from little ole me
Ducks in the ditch a neat fun image
CATV tower a nice abstraction. The key to using old paper is to make it fit the image content. Mottling in the mid tones you; say well with enough going on in this image, who would think to try to see mottling.
I am a little down on your reference to back when signals floated free in the air. We dropped cable TV 4 months ago, since we realized the kids spent all their time on the computer or video game thing or i-pod thing, and mom and dads use of tv was a big time waste. I strung up an antenna on the roof (about 40 years after helping as a child take one off my dads house) and we now have more than 25 signals that we actually want to watch, not counting the foreign language and religious programming, for free between the Toronto and Buffalo OTA digital stations.
Petite print of Day Lily. Very nice. Again, yes, a touch of fog, another by product of old paper, but it works with the image. I have some Velox out in the garage, and a little 4x5 contact printer meant for this type of paper. Hopefully your image has started to stoke my fire to test it and see what sort of a negative contrast is needed, and image content is needed to suit its present grade and fog level.
George, it was neat to see the three prints come out of the envelope, since I am always on the sending end. So live a little and make the prints bigger next time and get full value for the wonderful price of stamps that Canada post demands from us.
Keep the images coming folks. It alway brightens my day to have something other than junk mail and bills in the post when i get home!
Crispin Ginger Flower- A wonderful image of something I have never seen All of the ginger I have ever seen comes as a root, or ground to a powder.
The lighting of the original still life scene that you imaged well is most appropriately translated into the tones in the print
Mark Barendt- Oahu North Shore- I must confess to liking the framing of the elements in the image, but the print contrast leaves me flat. I think a more powerful image would have been achieved with a higher grade of paper. If the original negative was thin, and hence the image appearing limp, well, sorry. An auto-exposure camera is prone for giving under exposure in these circumstances, being fooled by the bright sun and sand. Dive into Fred Parkers The ultimate exposure tool goggle it, and proceed to expose with the camera set on manual with confidence.
Trond Bird - A neat abstraction of a real life scene. Nice placement of tones, sharp and well focused. The human feet hanging in the edge of the image do give the scene scale, but they are still a bit too distracting for my liking.
Nige Veranda View at night. Nige, you are brave to dig out old b&w negs from when you first got into film. I look back at mine and they are all so bad. I am almost willing to toss them, but I wont due to the memories of the subject matter. From the image it looks like you had a nice vista to look at growing up. My youth, and present day, vistas offer the blandness of suburbia.
Guitstik (I thing- Tennessee postmark) Window Detail of Miners Shack, Bodie CA. Very nice details. Shadow on the mesh curtains, cracks in the dried wood window frame, etc. It certainly shows you what 4x5 can do. Window pane frame slightly offset from print edges frame is a nice touch. Good perspective correction. All that should be straight and square is.
George Nova Scotia So, the prints on old paper, in an envelope disease has spread from little ole me
Ducks in the ditch a neat fun image
CATV tower a nice abstraction. The key to using old paper is to make it fit the image content. Mottling in the mid tones you; say well with enough going on in this image, who would think to try to see mottling.
I am a little down on your reference to back when signals floated free in the air. We dropped cable TV 4 months ago, since we realized the kids spent all their time on the computer or video game thing or i-pod thing, and mom and dads use of tv was a big time waste. I strung up an antenna on the roof (about 40 years after helping as a child take one off my dads house) and we now have more than 25 signals that we actually want to watch, not counting the foreign language and religious programming, for free between the Toronto and Buffalo OTA digital stations.
Petite print of Day Lily. Very nice. Again, yes, a touch of fog, another by product of old paper, but it works with the image. I have some Velox out in the garage, and a little 4x5 contact printer meant for this type of paper. Hopefully your image has started to stoke my fire to test it and see what sort of a negative contrast is needed, and image content is needed to suit its present grade and fog level.
George, it was neat to see the three prints come out of the envelope, since I am always on the sending end. So live a little and make the prints bigger next time and get full value for the wonderful price of stamps that Canada post demands from us.
Keep the images coming folks. It alway brightens my day to have something other than junk mail and bills in the post when i get home!