‘It is about a road which begins many miles before I come on its traces and ends miles beyond where I had to stop’, (‘The Icknield Way’ by Edward Thomas, 1913). So much in such few words.
Continue readingCategory: On film photography (Page 1 of 8)
I had long wanted to visit the Holywell church and well in North Wales but for some reason had never got round to it. So a few weeks ago I went with a Hasselblad 503, tripod and 80mm Planar lens and Ilford HP5 film.
Continue readingHow do I make smooth, flat, thin, even and bubble-free gelatin coatings on water-colour paper? Anwering this is crucial if I’m to make good Bromoil, Oil, Carbon Transfer and hand-made silver gelatin emulsion prints …
Continue readingI really enjoy travelling through the Welsh and English Marches, that thin band of land that straddles the Welsh and English border …
Continue readingRecently I went to a local exhibition of oil prints of scenes of the Wirral. The pictures were something to behold. The Oil method predates Bromoil but both belong to the same family of printing techniques that rely on the immiscibility of oil and water.
One of the frustrations of working in Bromoil is the lack of papers that take ink in the right way. The Oil method requires that you coat your own paper with sensitized gelatin. rather than buying commercial photo-sensitive paper. The process is quite long and finickety but so is Bromoil when it’s not working to plan, as 70% of my attempts end up.
So I plan to have a go at the Rawlins Oil Print, as I really like the result when it’s done well.
The first step is to write out a menu for myself and acquire all of the ingredients and kit. This I have now done. So here is the menu:
No doubt I will need to amend them as I go along, but it’s the best description I can put together having read quite a few articles and seen a few videos about it. As well as talking in detail with the artist at the local exhibition.
This post is one in a series called ‘behind the scenes’. The series describe how I visualise images and then the difficulties of putting these visualisations into effect as pictures.
Last year, just before the first COVID lock-down in England, I went walking in Sussex with my daughter. One of the towns we visited was Rye in East Sussex. I was curious how it might have changed since my last visit some 45 years ago.
Continue reading
This post examines the normal development time for my home-made Rodinal in a 1:25 dilution.
Continue reading
This post looks at how I have established a standard development time for my home-made Rodinal …
Continue reading
I have been playing with this particular scene using Bromoil to get an understanding of the different looks that I can create …
Continue readingThe advice from experienced darkroom printers is that it is best to get to know well one film and developer combination rather than frequently chopping and changing between different ones. I agree with this advice but at some point, the time comes to extend options. This post discusses how I am doing this.
Continue reading
Abandoned farm house, North Dakota, lith printed on Foma paper
