704 Studio

Saturday, June 28, 2008

With the Camera Again

A storm woke my wife and I early this morning. She asked me what time I thought it was. I gazed at the ceiling for 10 seconds and said 3:42am. She looked at her watch and said, "no way, you looked!" I did not look, I told her, and asked her what time it was. "3:42". Taking that as a sign that my sense of timing was sharp, I got up an hour later and decided to do something which I have not done in a long while - wander around the neighborhood with the camera.

The sky was beginning to illuminate the streets, and I decided to walk where I always go when I have my camera - the railyard. I have not visited the yard in a long time, and wondered what I would find. We have had a lot of rain this month, but when I arrived I saw a lot green vegetation growing on the tracks, no water, and no rail cars. The yard had turned into an empty field. The sky was a soft pearl gray with some shards of blue pasted in. Some large dark clouds hovered above the horizon, and the sunrise was too far north to make pictures of the yard roads.

So I wandered north of the yard, into a lot filled with old machinery and trucks. As I looked through the viewfinder I began seeing things in a new way. I usually take wide expansive landscapes when I am at the yard, but this morning everything was close up and detailed - thick black wires hanging against a pink sky; a strange metal structure; truck beds creating odd angles which somehow looked attractive and interesting; the rusted side of a truck, the morning light making it look beautiful and sublime.

I ended up making 44 exposures, which is surprising. Sometimes I see nothing and end up with 1 or 2 uninspired pictures. But today my eyes saw with passion and curiosity, and everything I gazed at was picturesque. I did not deserve to see with such clarity considering I had abandoned pictures for over a year, but I am happy that I still have the gift of seeing.

I am looking forward to developing the film quickly, maybe this weekend. I am now out of film, and will soon place an order for film, paper, gold toner, and other miscellaneous items. Being productive has a cost.

Two rolls of film I exposed today was outdated from 2002! I will give it a minute or two extra development and hope the fogginess does not hinder the details and contrast.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Film Development

I finally went into the darkroom this afternoon and developed 4 rolls of film. It has been a long while since I have done any darkroom work, yet I had not forgotten anything pertaining to film development - Turn off lights, unroll paper backing, cut film leader, roll film onto reel, place into lightproof container, repeat. Turn on lights, pour water into container for 2 minutes, empty water, pour developer and agitate 4-5 minutes, water rinse, stop bath 1 minute, fix 5 minutes, water rinse, hypo 2 minutes, 5 minutes wash, dunk in fotoflo/water 1 minute, hang to dry.

2 of the film rolls were from January 2008, the other 2 from October 2007. Because the film had been sitting in a warm room for a number of months, I extended the development time by 60-90 seconds to bring in a bit of lost contrast due to aging. Exposure/development looks good, and I may have 3 or 4 frames which I can print.

I need to order some gold toner and paper developer soon, but once the film dries I have everything I need to print. I am glad I have kept detailed notes on each print I have made during the past 4-5 years, it will refresh my memory on how to make a print.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

D-76

Did 5 minutes of work in the darkroom today - mixed some D-76 film developer. Not very productive, but it is a start. I hope to develop 6 rolls of film I exposed this past winter.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Starting Over

A new beginning.

I fell from my film orbit over a year ago, and I have done no work since. I spend my time running, meditating, eating, sleeping.

A few photography friends have recently appeared like bolts from the blue.

My life is drifting without a course.

It is time to return to the camera, the darkroom, my correspondence with nature.

Tuesday, January 1, 2002

The Studio

A Studio has its reality not only in a physical place, but also in the idea which sustains it. When I visited Van Gogh's final Studio in Northern France, I found a tiny attic room in a small hotel. It was illuminated by not only the lone window, but also by his will to make pictures. For Van Gogh, the Studio was wherever he planted his easel.

704 Studio was created in 2002 when the darkroom in the basement of my home was built. But its seeds were sown in the autumn of 1991, when I decided to pursue the art of photography. I had no home of my own, no darkroom, not even a camera, yet the desire to make photographs filled me with energy and hope. I did not know if I would ever be in possession of a Studio space, so I used what I had, and tried to make progress.

I now own a darkroom and home, a Hasselblad camera and a Pentax Spotmeter. I still feel like a beginner, taking baby steps upon a long road. As each new photograph passes from camera to film to paper, the dream of the Studio becomes more real.

The Darkroom

Basics
Camera - Hasselblad 500CM
Lens - 80mm
Metering System - Pentax Spot
Film - Kodak TMX 100, 400
Film developers - D76
Paper developers - Dektol, LD-20
Toners - Selenium, Sepia, Gold

Darkroom Equipment
Enlarger - Beseler 45 MXT
Enlarger light source - Cold light lamp

Film Exposure
I use Zone system concepts, but I reverse the standard procedure for metering. With landscapes, I find that sky values are important to me, so I place the cloud values on zone 7 or 8, and the shadows usually fall on zones 1-3. After noting the initial meter reading, I add 1.5 stops of exposure to the reading, thus assuring that the shadows are adequately exposed. When I develop the film I reduce development time by about 3 minutes, so that the highlights are pulled back to the initial zone placement of zone 7 or 8.

The Darkroom