The three Jessicas

The best of the prints from last week's club modelling session with Jessica.  They're not mounted properly - I was playing around with different colours and so far reckon that black suits the mood best.

Jessica.  Foma paper, lith

The Foma paper in lith results in a very warm print naturally, by the way. And yes, the grain really is that big - even on these 9.5"x12" prints.  That's partly due to exposing HP5 at (or around) 3200asa, but the lith process helps to accentuate that as well, in addition to adding even more to the softness of print.  It suits the subject well, I think.

And just for completeness, the print you might have seen earlier, kind of half-mounted:

I've enjoyed making these three prints enormously.  I seem to get more out of darkroom work than camera work at the minute - sometimes I need a kick to get out and actually take some snaps but I'm always itching to get in to the darkroom and print something.

Jessica

I’m writing this entry on Sunday evening whilst lying on the floor, just in case you were wondering. I lie on the floor most evenings, not just Sundays - it’s good for my aching bones. Today I spent all morning in the darkroom with Jessica.  I should perhaps explain that Jessica was one of two models our Photographic Club hired last Tuesday evening for a photo-shoot. I’m really not a studio photographer - hardly know one end of a flashgun from the other, truth be told - so I was way out of my comfort zone.  Everyone else was urging these off-camera flash triggers on the hot shoe of their pixel-snappers and doing lots of 'chimping'.  I brought the NikonFM3a and an old Vivitar Series 1 35-85mm lens. I had to sharpen the elbows to get anywhere near Jessica but I got a couple of shots. Here’s one, not quite dry&flat and therefore expertly held up by Missy, complete with fresh nail polish:

Jessica

I was rating HP5+ at 3200asa and just using what light there was without the studio flashes that were available.  There wasn’t much, mind you, but I was primarily interested to see what HP5 at this speed looks like - any decent shots would be a bonus.  But I screwed up a bit with RO9 at the developer stage. The MassiveDevChart app on my phone suggested 18mins@21 degrees for 3200asa but only 12mins at 20 degrees for 1600asa.  That seemed like a heck of a difference so I chickened out and stopped developing at 16mins (21 deg). That, my friends, was an error of judgment  - the negs were under-cooked.

Not only that, my focussing was off and nothing was sharp. But hey, since when did that matter? Times like this only one thing for it - lith, and hope for the best. In the first print the skin tones were way too dark so I reduced the exposure by a full stop. The second print is what you see above. Well - after a quick dip in PotFerri just to add a little something.

Elevated

Chicago is famous for many things - architecture, rivers, art and gangsters such as Al Capone.  And the Blues Brothers film, of course.  Once seen, the clip of Jake and Elwood trying to sleep in their 'compact and bijou' bedsit is hard to forget, with the constant noise of the trains as they rumble past at eye level.  The L, as its known (L for eLevated) is this city's answer to London's Tube.  There are parts downtown in 'the loop' which go underground but for the most part it's an overground system, which I much prefer.  I'm not a fan of going underground - it's years since I took the Tube in London and while I'd like to think it has improved a lot in that time all I remember is the dirt, the smell and the poor air quality.  That plus in an aging system like London's any major incident such as fire and you're lucky to get out in one piece - some of those London tube stations are seriously deep underground.

Anyway, we took the train from Oak Park in the West Suburbs downtown only once this trip.  It's just as quick to drive down the I-290 expressway if you don't hit traffic but parking downtown is pretty difficult and very expensive, so this time we went by CTA train (Chicago Transit Authority) and about 30 minutes later got off somewhere around State Street.  From there it was a couple of blocks to Michigan Avenue and a couple more to our destination - the Museum of Contemporary Photography, housed in Columbia College. Somewhere between State and Michigan Avenue I snapped up a bit of the L on the 'Blad with HP5+:

The L Metro system, downtown Chicago.  On Ilford Fibre Classic paper

So, why the Museum of Contemporary Photography, then?  Not for the contemporary photography, in this case - no, for the chance to see a few prints by Ansel Adams. Not often do I get that chance in or around the North East Liberties of Coleraine so it had to be done.  I wasn't disappointed.

In the small upstairs gallery there were a couple of dozen black and print prints - proper darkroom prints, of course.  And in and among them were about 8 by Mr Adams - all of them taken out in one or other of the National Parks.  What was great was simply having all the time I wanted to study the prints up close.  There were only a few other people in the place so it was perfect.  In no particular order, then:  the prints weren't that big, some were 8"x10", others maybe 10"x12"; the quality of the printing was as expected (good); some were signed, some were initialed, some had no signature; quite a few dust spots and blemishes were evident on close inspection (so it's not just me then);  some looked to be dry-mounted, others were mounted in see-through photo corners. It was great to be able to see them at such close quarters - I was very happy with my afternoon downtown.

Thunderbirds in the garden

It was a very sunny day back in August when I visited DePaul University's Lincoln Park campus. While The Brother was working - meetings and whatever else needed his attention in the office - I wandered about with the Hasselblad casually slung over my shoulder.  It’s a pretty affluent area around the Uni but that means it’s a bit of a target for theft, since students are likely to have expensive cell phones, laptops, Hasselblads etc on them.  I tried to be as unobtrusive as one can with a ‘Blad.

This was a busy scene - not with people, but busy with foliage and shadows.  There weren’t many students kicking about - well, it was summer recess and it was hot hot hot but I tried to get a couple of bodies in the shot. Barely visible and almost camouflaged, mind you...

DePaul University Garden, Lincoln Park Campus, Illinois.  Ilford Fibre Classic paper, sepia toner.

There was a bit more detail in the sunlit areas that appears on the print, simply due to the fact that I reached for the sepia toner and the bleach took what detail there was and didn't give it back.  It's probably better to over-print ever-so-slightly when using a bleach toner, but that's a detail I don't always remember in the heat of the moment in the darkroom.

Just after I took this shot I had the bejesus scared out of me by the sound of US Air Force jets screaming low overhead.  I was totally unprepared for them - the sound reverberated around the buildings surrounding the courtyard garden and it was as loud as loud can be.  I learned later they were practicing for the Chicago Air and Water Show - they're called the Thunderbirds, I believe.  Pretty apt name, but they might have had the decency to inform me beforehand.  I actually wondered if all was well in the world, or was Chicago under attack.  Thankfully it wasn't and I survived the Chicago experience, in spite of the best intentions of the Thunderbirds.

Film Star

Just for fun the other day I printed out the film edges of a shot I took during the summer.  Here’s the digital version of the print:

Missy, not enjoying have a camera thrust in her face in Italy, 2018.

The reasons for the dirty look I’m getting is ‘cos it was after a very long day traipsing around Pompei in the hot afternoon sun. Missy was not impressed when I lifted the rangefinder to snap her up, poor thing. Dads, eh?!

It wasn’t too difficult to get the film edges half decent - it only took a couple of wasted sheets of paper. In the end I kind of split-grade printed the thing, in reverse. To begin, I exposed the whole thing (neg&edges) for a few seconds at grade 5. Then under red light I masked out the film edges using the easel, just giving a thin border around the negative (best done, I found, at full aperture to get it as accurate as possible). Then red light off, stop down the lens again and expose a few more seconds at grade 2.5 to give those skin tones a chance.

I like the result. Not perfect but then I kind of like the imperfections of analogue photography, if only to differentiate it from that clinical digital look. That’s my excuse, anyway! On Ilford Classic fibre paper.

Candy seller

During our short trip to the US of A in the summer we went to one of Chicago's many beaches on the shores of Lake Michigan.  This was same beach as the last print - Montrose, on the North Side, which is, apparently, one of the easiest in terms of parking/access.  Last time we went, about 5 years ago, it was heaving with people, on account of most of the other beaches being closed for some reason.  And when I say heaving, I mean hardly space to stand.  Horrible, it was - I'm used to the wild empty beaches of Ireland, y'see and this was about as far from that as you can get.  But this time around it was perfect - late afternoon and amazingly, hardly anyone there.  We brought a picnic but spent most of the time in the water.  I wished we had gone earlier in our short trip there, as it was nice and cool compared to the suburb of Oak Park were The Brother lives.

Anyway, I had the Hasselblad with me and when I was out of the water I snapped up this candy seller.  I didn't look too closely but I think it was candy floss, or spun sugar as I think they call it over there.

Candy seller, Montrose Beach, Illinois

As per usual, I had HP5+ loaded - developed in my new favourite, RO9 diluted 1+25 which gives a really punchy easy-to-print negative. On Ilford Fibre Classic paper, sepia tone.

It was dark when we headed for 'home' and I have to say, it was absolutely magical driving south along Lake Shore Drive back through the city before turning west for Oak Park.  Chicago was all lit up and looking stunning.  A far cry from the Liberties of Coleraine.  Although it's a fairly brutal journey it's amazing to think that it's really only about 8 hours away.  That's 8 hours once you're in the 'plane - but when you tack on a 4 hour journey to Dublin, an overnight in an airport hotel (not strictly necessary but kind of sensible otherwise you're getting up before you go to bed in order to make it through security and US immigration in time to catch your mid-morning flight) then it stretches into a fairly lengthy and tiring slog.

If you're still reading and wondering about that last sentence perhaps I should explain that Ireland, to my knowledge, is the only country outside the US that does pre-clearance for US immigration - that's through both Shannon Airport in the West and Dublin in the East, by the way.  Something to do with a 'special relationship' - probably since most of Ireland seemed to leave the country in the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries and head for the New World.  Whatever the reason, it's a Big Deal - no, it's a Huge Deal, actually, since the queues for immigration at any US airport are no joke after an 8-hour flight.  So in Dublin we did the pre-clearance thing and got our passports stamped which meant that when we landed in Chicago we disembarked as if we were on an internal US flight - no further checks required.  It’s probably the best way to enter the US from overseas.

Montrose Beach, Illinois

This was a tough call, exposure-wise, given that there was a wide subject brightness range, from the shadow cast by the tree to the brightness of the late afternoon sky.  That - and the fact that I was using the 'blad and only the light meter between my ears.  It wasn't easy to print and I've a feeling that there's a better print in there somewhere but this is the best I got the other day in the darkroom:

Montrose Beach, Lake Michigan, Illinois, 2018

As you can see it’s cropped from the 6x6 format. I  I cropped to a 2:3 aspect ratio (like 35mm), which seemed to fit the composition better. It's on Ilford Fibre Classic paper which has a lovely look about it.  This one was toned in sepia.

To get the print into digital format for this place, I did what I normally do and scanned it.  I use a fairly old Epson 4870 scanner and the standard Epson Scan software, set to 48-bit colour and 300dpi, which gives me a file about 50Mb in size (!) from a 9.5"x12" print.  (I always do a preview scan first and then the full scan but I don't check histogram or other stuff).  But then I sat at the computer and looked at the scanned image and compared it to the print.  Well, there is no comparison - the print is always sooo much richer, deeper, nicer.  I know, I know, it's a dumb thing to do but I was surprised by how poor the scan was.  The problem may not be down to the software settings alone (or at all) - the scanner is A4 size and a 9.5”x12” print is slightly too large to sit flat on the glass.

Anyway, I took the print into a room where the weak winter sun was coming through the window, set the print up and snapped it using my phone.  Then I brought it into Photoshop on the desktop machine and already it was looking better.   That's the image you see at the top of this page. Here is the scan:

Same print, scanned.

I left these deliberately on the large side, by the way, so as to make full screen comparisons a little more authentic.  Apologies if you're viewing these on a dial-up modem...

There's a real difference - to my eyes, on my monitor. I must admit I was surprised, as I thought that the scanning would have been the better way to go.  And yes, I'm sure there's a ton of stuff I could do to make the scan better but as I've said elsewhere, I've no real interest in scanning other than to get the print into some sort of digital form.  So for now, it looks like a phone shot of the print is the best way to go to share my masterpieces on the Interweb ;)

Power Crazy

I snapped these lines up in Lincoln Park, on the North Side of Chicago.  I'm sure there's a plan in there somewhere, but I couldn't see it:

Power Lines, Lincoln Park, Illinois 2018.  Ilford Fibre Classic paper.

It’s pretty much the same around The Brothers House in Oak Park and I’m not sure why - the wires look like they’ve been done by about 20 different companies and so there’s no sense of uniformity or that anyone’s in charge here but it seems to work (most of the time) so What do I know? I’m guessing that when there’s a problem or a new connection to be established some Joe comes along, takes a look and thinks ‘Jeez I ain’t sortin that lot out’. He just gets the job done that’s he’s paid to do and gets the hell out...and adds to the general confusion.