darkroom class

Negative Stacking, part 2

Photography

attack of the killer baseball

Last night in my darkroom class we learned some image manipulation techniques. Weirdly and unexpectedly my teacher mentioned negative stacking. I wasn’t planning on doing this yesterday in the darkroom but I had to give it a shot, since she mentioned it. I picked out a couple of photos from the negatives I had just developed and sandwiched them on the light-box. As soon as I saw the baseball and the alley I knew I had to try it.

I love it! I want to do more. I want to get all cheesy and over the top with it. It would be hilarious if I could take a photo of the murderous, bird-killing neighbor cat and substitute it for the baseball.

This could get scary.

Evolution of a Print – Part 2

Photography

Evolution of A Print - Dodging
We packed a lot of learning into my class Monday night. After we were shown how to use contrast filters, and after we tried it, we were taught how to dodge and burn. I had the perfect image to try this on. I took this photo of a statue in the Louvre and since it was lighted from behind it was silhouetted.

I love how low-tech this process is. She simply used her hand to dodge. Or if you can’t use your hand you use one of the handy “tools” which is a small piece of cardboard duck-taped to a wire hanger. That is what I had to use because of where my statue is situated in the photo and because I put the negative in the carrier upside down.

A quick wave over of the statue and, voilà, more information is revealed. Magic.

Evolution of A Print - Dodging

It will be fun to use this more in the future and, hopefully perfect it. I don’t understand a lot of this at the moment, logically. I feel like I am feeling around in the dark (Actually, that is exactly what I am doing. No metaphor there at all). Hopefully it will feel more natural to me in the near future with practice.

Next week we are learning about photo manipulation. I am not sure, exactly, what that means but I can’t wait to find out!

Darkroom Class 3- Evolution of a Print, part 1

Photography

I had SO MUCH FUN in my darkroom class last night. We explored contrast filters and I really enjoyed the process of watching the image change and improve. Our teacher first had us dive in and make a print. I chose this photo I took of the pyramids at the Louvre. The image below is what I came up with.
Evolution of a print - 1

Very dark and no whites to speak of. Our teacher decided to use this image as an example to show us how to use the filters. It was an instant improvement and I couldn’t believe it. It was fun because we used the chemistry to develop this (instead of the machine) so I got to watch the image emerge on the paper.
Evolution of a print - 2

It’s crazy how much of a difference a little contrast can make!

Here is one that I did on my own so I could fix a couple of things and make sure the process sticks in my head.

Evolution of a print - 3

Now I need to work on getting things straight on the paper. For some reason I am having a really hard time with that part of it. Again, though, it really drives home the importance of getting things right in-camera.

Also, I scanned this image earlier in the day and I have to say that I love the print version better, despite it’s off-centered-ness. Maybe because I made it by hand myself. But I also think it just looks better. The computer screen really doesn’t do it justice.

We also did dodging and burning. I will share my results of that process in my next post.