More Darkroom Time
Gosh I am having a great time again in the darkroom. After a long hiatus and seemingly unable to get motivated in that direction the last week has been close to continuous activity as evidenced by the last 4 blog posts.
Part of it was clearing out the shared space of the darkroom which I share with the laundry room. It is also realizing that my basic skills don't fail. That is not to say I am terribly talented here but I believe I am competent and consistent in practice as well as results. That makes a huge difference. I have been learning this since 2013 when I bought my first enlarger. For those new to it keep up the work. Once the habits and learnings are in place then the ease enhances the joy.
I can attribute some of this joy to my automated setup for split grade printing. It eases some of the monotony and reduces errors. That being said the time alone can also be contemplative.
My first day back this week, I discovered that my Fomabrom Variant 123 pack of 12x16 paper was very fogged. This was disappointing as I didn't think the paper was that old and 50 sheets of 12x16 paper is not cheap (£140!). Looking back at old blog posts it looks like the paper is 4 1/2 years old.
This lead me to a bit of a panic as I have similarly aged paper I bought new. So I tried printing on some Fomabrom MG Classic 132 9.5" x 12" warm tone paper I had. Looked pretty good. Also some warm tone Ilford 8x10 paper which looked new. I am not a fan of warm tone papers which is why they have languished on the shelf. Still it is good to reassess ones prejudices and tastes.
Here is what I printed on some Ilford Warm tone RC paper; I was concerned might be old. It turns out to be fine and I ended up with this good print. I notice that despite the paper being warm tone it doesn't behave that way probably due to my Moersch Eco 4812 developer. The last time I printed on this paper I was using Ilford Universal PQ developer and it had a much warmer tone then.
I like the amount of detail in the area around the waterfall. Here is the print...
Part of it was clearing out the shared space of the darkroom which I share with the laundry room. It is also realizing that my basic skills don't fail. That is not to say I am terribly talented here but I believe I am competent and consistent in practice as well as results. That makes a huge difference. I have been learning this since 2013 when I bought my first enlarger. For those new to it keep up the work. Once the habits and learnings are in place then the ease enhances the joy.
I can attribute some of this joy to my automated setup for split grade printing. It eases some of the monotony and reduces errors. That being said the time alone can also be contemplative.
My first day back this week, I discovered that my Fomabrom Variant 123 pack of 12x16 paper was very fogged. This was disappointing as I didn't think the paper was that old and 50 sheets of 12x16 paper is not cheap (£140!). Looking back at old blog posts it looks like the paper is 4 1/2 years old.
This lead me to a bit of a panic as I have similarly aged paper I bought new. So I tried printing on some Fomabrom MG Classic 132 9.5" x 12" warm tone paper I had. Looked pretty good. Also some warm tone Ilford 8x10 paper which looked new. I am not a fan of warm tone papers which is why they have languished on the shelf. Still it is good to reassess ones prejudices and tastes.
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| Fomabrom Warm Tone Print of Force Gill Whernside 9.5x12 |
I like the amount of detail in the area around the waterfall. Here is the print...
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| Ilford RC Warm Tone Print of Force Gill Whernside 8x10 |
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