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Another print in this series of digital images made into negatives for conventional silver gelatin prints. You can find earlier incarnations here ...  Blog Post Image This time I decided to experiment with a warmtone paper. The genesis of this was that I noted, and Andrew Sanderson master printer prints exclusively on Ilford Warmtone paper. I have a bias towards neutral tone papers and developer, and I typically use Ilford MGFB Classic with a very white baryta paper base or Ilford Art 300 paper with a cotton rage paper that is slightly warm in tone. I use Moersch ECO 4812 developer which is a neutral developer on these papers.  I do not know the reasons for Andrew Sandersons choice but there are some printers that prefer a slightly warm tone and will add a barely noticeable sepia tone to a finished print. It is also possible that it provides more opportunity for toning generally. So I thought why not?  I do not have a warmtone developer however so there is a limit at this point to the

Another print from this series that emphasizes negative space using film negatives created from a digital image.  I made a series of images on the same foggy morning on Lake Pend Oreille in Idaho. There was some ice on the lake and a shifting fog obscuring and revealing the far shore.  I find foggy images exceedingly difficult to print and there can be many interpretations of an image as a result. ( Here is an example of one such exploration of the range of a print's possibilities.) The difficulty stems from the lack of ability to manipulate the contrast using multi-grade paper. There is a limited contrast range achievable even from the highest contrast filter. The negative itself has a very compressed range of tone due to the subject matter. (This is perhaps where digital can excel however the limited range is inherent in the image and even digital can create visible quantization effects unless one is careful in post processing. ) There are other techniques to improve the contrast

On my pursuit of negative space images, I find these are hard to plan for and one must try and be alive to the idea when they happen. This one I captured on my regular winter walks through town. I was shooting in a black and white mindset with my Fuji GFX 50s ii digital camera set to a 65:19 aspect ratio. This is my favorite setup to use. Presetting the camera in this way mimics some of my film exploits and lets the mind settle on a certain style by removing choices. Fixing the aspect ratio forces a compositional dynamic that opens up possibilities for me as much as it forces a constraint. In this case the low cloud and fog between the screen of winter trees and the mountain created this veil of mystery and lets one's mind imagine the whole scene. The screen of trees provide some tonal weight to help ground the image.  I had this image converted to a 6x7 medium format negative using the services of Gammatech. This allows me to put it in my 4x5 enlarger. I set the condensers for the

My commute by bicycle takes me through the RSPB refuge at Fen Drayton. Along an old railway line it passes through the old gravel pits converted to a number of lakes. I have written of this place before as it is close to home and so when I am looking for a few hours away photographing I head there. This past Spring has been unusual. It has been relatively dry though still cold, as a result the mornings have been foggy. My experience of the past several years is that Fall is the time of foggy mornings and I have kicked myself a number of times for not taking the time to use this change as a chance to take some different photos. My wake-up call came again one morning as I rode through the foggy morning and saw a number of subjects to photograph. I resolved the next time to take a camera. A week later my chance arrived. I loaded up some Ilford HP5+ 400 speed film and a fresh spare roll and packed my Fuji GSWiii 690 camera as something relatively compact. I stopped at several places on