Marvellous portrait!
I want to know (please) about the technical aspects of this photos (film and developing process).
The photograph was taken in our music room with evening light entering the room from a window camera left. The background was a window and a redwood deck on the other side that was also lit by the evening light. The camera was a Bronica SQ-Ai with a 180mm f/4.5 lens. This lens focuses as close as 1-meter, which makes it ideal for medium format headshots. The camera was mounted on a tripod and scene was metered with an incident light meter. The exposure was 1/60 of a second at f/5.6. One other note regarding the camera, I use a 45 degree prism finder for portraits that helps me greatly during composition and focusing (and any other situation where I need to get lower for a more interesting perspective on the subject).
The image was captured on Tri-X 400, exposed at an EI of 1250, developed in Diafine, and fixed in TF-4. I use a standardized development process with Diafine that I picked up from the Figital Revolution web site (see the Diafine Developer UNIVERSAL TIME/ AGITATION PROCEDURE at
http://figitalrevolution.com/2008/06/09/new-testing-results-for-inkaid-and-film-processing/). I have found Diafine to be ideal for my Hybrid process for the reasons Stephen Schaub describes at the Figital Revolution (if you are really interested go to
http://figitalrevolution.com search on the word Diafine and go the last page of results and start at the beginning) and Sandy King presents in his July/Aug 2008 View Camera article (
http://www.viewcamera.com/documents/pages48-55.pdf). The only thing that I wish that Diafine did was stained the negatives like Pryrocat HD. Maybe Sandy King can develop a staining and compensating developer that is as easy and robust to use as Diafine if he did, I for one would be all over it in a New York minute.
The negative was scanned with a Nikon CoolScan 9000 using the FH-869G film carrier. I quickly batch scan the roll of negatives in B&W at 1,333 dpi using Vuescan and import them into Lightroom where they receive some quick exposure and contrast adjustments and are evaluated. This portrait image is straight out of Lightroom with basic exposure and contrast adjustments and a little spotting. Images processed in Diafine tend to be rather flat with a long tonal scale, which is good for scanning and easily adjusted in software. The image was placed into an InDesign template that I use to create folio images using techniques that I learned/borrowed/stole from Brooks Jensen and Lenswork (
Dead Link Removed. The post scan processing to get the image in this form including InDesign folio presentation template was quick, say 5 to 10 minutes. Note, this is my work print process. If this work print makes it through my project final print selection process, the negative will be wet mounted, rescanned as a positive at a higher resolution, and more elaborate processing will be applied, e.g., noise reduction, finer tonal adjustments, sharping, etc.. The 8.5x11 inkjet work print of this image is just short of stunning. The image its self is about 7-inches square in this folio presentation format.
The other image was generally created the same way. The differences were that the film was FP4+ exposed at an EI of 250, which incidentally was processed in the same tank with the roll of Tri-X that the portrait was on, the camera was Bronica RF645 with 65mm lens, and it received about 2 minutes of additional localized contrast adjustments in Lightroom. While the 8.5x11 work print of this image is good, this image would more definitely benefit from wet mount scanning at a higher resolution, more elaborate post scan processing, and probably most importantly, presentation as a larger print.
I have a very product oriented work flow. If you are seriously interested, Id be glad to share an overview of my product oriented work flow process.