Grainy, grainy, grainy

I was looking for grain but never thought I’d produce grain this big! Film was out dated Kodak TMax 3200 shot during the day. Development was in Agfa Rodinal diluted 1:100 with agitation for the first minute and then stand development for 1 hour with three inversions on the half hour only. Fog levels were very high making these negatives difficult to scan and fairly difficult to print – this could well be the effect of out dated high-speed film rather than just the development alone. Though you can’t see in a web image this size (scanned from a darkroom print on Grade 5 Multigrade paper) the grain looks like its been stencilled on – by the way did I say this was grainy?

Tin-type portrait event

Just to give my friends at Community Darkroom, Rochester, NY a plug – they are running a TinType Portrait Event. Final product is a portrait in the style of a vintage photo. A great gift for yourself or a special someone for only $65. Make an appointment for Saturday, June 13. Call 585 271 5920 – tell them I sent you

Silver gelatin digital prints

It was just a year ago I was writing about the future for digital black-and-white prints being the new printing paper developed by Harman technology (Ilford) for exposure in digital printers like the Lightjet or Durst Lambda, then processed in conventional wet darkroom chemistry. The fututre has got here much faster than I anticipated. Last week Ilford launched its online service to supply conventional darkroom silver gelatin prints from digital black-and-white files (and of course film if you want to order on line, not upload). The samples I took away from Focus on Imaging were clean and crisp, just like quality darkroom prints on RC paper. There is not yet the option for printing to the heavyweight baryta ‘fine print’ papers but I can see that’s going to come. I’m off to upload some images – I’ll let you know how I get on.