Monochrome

Aah. The bad old days when I could only afford FP4 or HP5 black and white film.  Colour film was a luxury, but on the positive side, shooting black and white changed my view of the world and set me searching for textures, patterns and contrasts.

Making a good looking monochrome print from the negative proved just as demanding. No matter how good it looked last night in the darkroom, in the morning the prints always looked just a bit muddy.



I resorted to using harder and harder grade paper to get those really convincing black tones. Then there was the specs of dust to contend with. You could never see them under the enlarger, but they certainly showed up in daylight.




Then you had to clear up afterwards, clean the trays, dry everything off. The bathroom smelled of fixer for a few days afterwards... It was all such hard work...  

However sometimes you would come out with one nice big print that was good enough to be framed and go on the wall.



Clearly its easier now. I could set the camera to shoot monochrome if I wished, however I take all my pictures in colour regardless. (In fact I use the raw files from the camera, so there's no choice anyway). I can decide to convert the image to monochrome at a later date, and maybe - just maybe - the results are better.

I sometimes miss the grain, but I don't miss the dust.



Oh, and at least the bathroom doesn't smell of fixer these days.

Comments

  1. Tony Boughen27 November 2010 at 09:52

    Regarding Ilford FP4 and HP5 film and wet home-processing - as Maurice Chevalier used to say "...ah yes, I remember it well." And, despite the nostalgia that some have for it, I wouldn't return to film.

    I'm enjoying the photographs and the accompanying text.

    Regards,
    Tony

    ReplyDelete
  2. Pete (The Snaarman)27 November 2010 at 11:19

    Many thanks.. When I look back at my results from the film era, I find the quality disappointing and the effort seemed huge. There is no doubting that digital photography is more convenient.

    As to the blog, I am trying to balance pictures with just enough text, partly because I am more of a photographer than a writer ...

    :-)

    Pete

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wicker dam

Image
Well this is typical of Britain. We used to do things well. Sheffield steel was the envy of the world, people would queue round the block for the chance to buy a nice nylon shirt from Marks and Spencer or a brand new Vauxhall Velox. And now? Now we try to keep lake water in place with a pair of wicker fences.  It is this sort of woolly thinking that could lose us our Empire. You mark my words.
Read more

What's This?

Image
What's this little thing then eh?   Well, let me tell you a story... We changed cars recently. The replacement car is awfully modern and features a USB port.   A USB port.. really? What is that for, do you charge your phone on it? No, in fact you connect your iPod* to it. However it will also accept a standard memory stick and play mp3 music files from folders directly. Now that is a cute trick, as I don't own an iPod*. However, I wouldn't want a conventional memory stick poking out of the car for all to see, so I set off in search of the smallest stick I can find. Here it is, a Busbi Mini 4GB stick. In the background are just some of the CDs and tapes I transferred to it. Even this version looks like it will hold about 40 albums, which is all we will need in the car. So, this leads me to a nostalgic moment. In order to convert the tapes to mp3, I had to record them on the PC, cut 25 minutes of audio into individual tracks and export as WAV
Read more

Pompeii

Image
No trip to the Bay of Naples is complete without a visit to Pompeii. This vast 270 acre site is almost too much to take in, particularly in the scant two hours we had with our coach guide. Here's a view of the Auditorium near the end of the visit. A chance to sit down and relax for a moment.  As always, click on the image for the full size version.   The plaster casts of the victims are a chilling and sombre sight in amongst all the ruins For a more relaxed and informative experience, I suggest Herculaneum, on the other side of Vesuvius. Unlike Pompeii, this was covered in volcanic ash and mud which created a anaerobic layer that led to the  preservation of wood and similar materials. Here is a panorama of the buried town that shows how far below the current ground level it is. Most of Herculaneum is under the more recent town. It was lost for centuries: Historians agreed the it and Pompeii were on the coast, but they were digging in the wrong p
Read more