Hi, friends:

Thanks to Lutz's good will plus my son Cristóbal's coaching I recently began making my own dark room work. This photo is one of the first ones I have produced in these conditions.

Developing my film and most specially printing have been quite an experience for me. Now I began looking at subjects in new ways and have discovered the real meaning of "keepers" and trash (most of them)negatives . . .

These leeves belong to a plant we call "Matico" (cientific name unknown for me; it is well known in popular medicine for their power to ease the formation of scars and heal open wounds the same as stomach ulcers and as a general disinfectant). In nature they actually are grayish and matte but I didn't anticipate they way they would look against the dark background.

Comments welcome, of course. Thanks in advance.

-Iván

-- Iván Barrientos M (ingenieria@simltda.tie.cl), April 25, 2002

Answers

Ivan:

This is a good attempt. There are many tricks we use to "dodge" and "burn" areas that are not quite what we like. Another way to manipulate a picture is to change the paper contrast to increase or decrease what we see. Changing the developing time is a tool to increase and decrease contrast. I personally would have printed this with a little more contrast.

Keep working on it. With this good, this early you have potential. ;>)

Congradulations on being able to print.

-- Mark J. (logical1@catholic.org), April 25, 2002.

Welcome to the wonderful world of the wet darkroom, Ivan. Your print is good for an early effort. From your description of the plant, however, I get the impression the leaves aren't quite as dark as they appear in your print. Personally, I'd try to match the tonality of the original leaves in the print, and increase the contrast a bit (either by using a slightly higher contrast filter, or a higher contrast grade of paper).

One thing I have found to be helpful is to put a clear negative (no image, just blank developed and fixed film) in the enlarger, and run a test on a new batch of paper to determine the minimum exposure to get a true black. To do this, put a 5x7 piece of paper in your easel, set your timer for 2 seconds, and then cover all but 1/2" or so of the paper with a piece of black paper. Make the first exposure, and then move the black paper another 1/2" to make the second exposure. Repeat this across the 5x7 test print, and then develop it. Once it has been washed and dried, you can find the minimum exposure needed for a true black above film base and fog. Then you know that is the minimum exposure you'll need for any negative you print on that batch of paper. (The minimum exposure time will vary slightly between paper batches.)

Have fun with your expanded capability.

-- Ralph Barker (rbarker@pacbell.net), April 25, 2002.