Le Touriste

Still working away on my Still Life tables - gathering more bits&pieces from my mother's house and trying to set them out in some half-sensible way to tell a story.  This is the latest effort, using the 'Blad, some old FP4+ and a 60mm lens:

Le Touriste, 2020.  Hasselblad/FP4+/60mm on Foma 133 fibre paper

My Uncle's old briefcase is the perfect period piece, as is his Omega Seamaster watch.  I burned in the face of the watch a little, as it was catching the light.  I could have probably given it a bit more.  There's natural light coming through the garage window to the right hand side and I'm holding a large foil reflector just out of shot on the left to balance it out a bit.  Exposure was around the 6s mark, allowing for reciprocity failure.  I'm not a smoker, by the way, but my brother-in-law is so last time he was down I asked him to keep me some of his butts.  Lovely, I know - and they really stink, so I keep them in a small sealed plastic food container and only bring them out for the shot.  I'm sure he must think I'm not right in the head...and he might be right.

This was developed in good old Multigrade and then bleached back prior to sepia toning, just as in the gooseberries print the other day.  I overprinted it slightly, by maybe 1/2 a stop to allow for the bleach but even though I pulled the print early from the bleach stage as I was toning the print it looked like I'd lost most of the writing on the 'Touriste' card and the Royal Automobile Club 'France' map in the foreground.  But it's funny old game, the darkroom thing is, as after washing and drying it was all good - the lettering is, as you can see, still visible.