Watch out for those colors!

[NedL]

On Sunday, I took my daughter to a yarn store that specializes in handmade and hand-dyed yarns... I almost laughed when I went inside and there were about 10 somewhat, well, elderly women sitting around a table in the back gossiping and knitting . While my daughter was looking around, I went outside. The store is in an old building, and the back was made from corrugated steel, and there was a bare tree casting a sharp shadow onto it in the late afternoon sun, the patterns looked really neat, almost shimmering. The building is painted a flat barn-red color... I jogged back to the car and got a pinhole camera and got back just in time to try it before the light changed. This was full sunshine, with bright highlights coming off the ridges and dark sharp shadows between.... I'm used to adding some time for brown or orange subjects... I gave it 1 minute ( normal full sun exposure like this would be about 20 seconds ). Tonight when I developed it, the negative was almost blank... only a tiny bit of sky above the roof-line had anything... there were faint stripes where the highlights off the corrugation were but otherwise the negative is white . This was pretty amazing: the highlights were bright enough to make you squint your eyes! I thought I'd probably overexposed it.

 

[NedL]

So I went back this past Sunday and tried again... same bright late afternoon sun, 6 minute exposure:


Back of the Yarn Store par Ned, on ipernity

Made with the direct paper positive process we've been discussing in another thread. I think it's remarkable this wasn't totally blown out using a 6 minute exposure in bright sun.

 

[iandvaag]

Awesome photo, Ned! Thanks for sharing!

 

[DWThomas]

That's a great second pass! Thinking from my own IR work, barn red is pushing near the IR end of things, and I think most papers don't get very far beyond the blue end, so the end result could be almost like sticking an 89B or R720 in the way. Needing an extra half dozen stops sorta makes sense. It's fun (or can be) exploring this stuff.

 

[NedL]

Thanks! Standing there in person, I had the impression that the highlights were bright white light... bright enough to make you squint! But the red paint must have absorbed most of the blue and green light the paper is sensitive to. Maybe our eyes start to lose color perception if the light is bright enough or there's enough contrast? I'm still a little amazed that this photograph wasn't totally blown out

 

[Joe VanCleave]

Nicely done, Ned. I need to get back to doing more direct positives.