Thursday 7 November 2019

Caffe Poli

This was taken at the entrance of the Flea Market in Bergamo - although I must confess to moving the cup a little to get some of the early morning sun.  Not sure what I must have looked like to the people going in and out but I'm kind of past caring what anyone might be thinking about me these days.

As usual the print is a bit richer than what you get here on screen but anyway:

Entrance to Flea Market, Bergamo.  HP5+ on Ilford Warmtone fibre paper

It didn't really work as well as I wanted - the flower pot is just plain dull and boring.  I might have been better taking it off the table and just making do with the cup and the ashtray.  Or maybe not bothering at all...
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5 comments:

  1. Gnoll9@gmail.com8 November 2019 at 15:28

    Not to bad at all.
    Don't like to photograph plants, trees in B&W they usually come dull anyway.
    Flowers - yes, that is different story

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    Replies
    1. Michael McNeill10 November 2019 at 16:00

      Thank you. Trees I don't mind so much in B&W - though more in winter for that 'bleak' look. Flowers I generally leave to the colourist folk ;)

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  2. Marcus Peddle9 November 2019 at 14:20

    I was going to write, "You can go back and try some other setups", but I realised the cafe is in Italy and you're not.
    How hard was it to fit all that contrast into your print?

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    Replies
    1. Michael McNeill10 November 2019 at 16:08

      I'd love to go back tomorrow, Marcus. We were there for 5 days give or take and the light was lovely for 3 of them. The last couple of days the cloud was low and it was very dull.

      That's a straight print - albeit a split-grade print. That's where two exposures are made in the darkroom, one at Grade 0 (for the light grays/highlights) and a second at Grade 5 (for the shadows/blacks). It's a way to get a full range of tones and contrast out of the negative. In theory the two exposures could be combined to print 'normally' at some grade inbetween 0 and 5 but in practice the split-grade method seems to offer an easier route.

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    2. Marcus Peddle10 November 2019 at 22:32

      Thanks for the explanation. I learned darkroom skills for a while, but I didn't learn any advanced techniques like that.

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