Scanning 8x10 negatives

 

I've been processing and scanning the 8x10's this week and there are discoveries to be made there in working with film you shot months ago. One of the unpleasant ones is discovering you were not as careful with the film holders as you thought you were. Arg, light leaks, both big and small.

First post of 2021!

 

I realized I keep putting off posting to this bog and it had become a ghost site. It's been hard enough in a pandemic year to post every day in my Self Portrait blog and this was one more thing. So with good intentions and not much else to do I will try to re-energize this blog. 

I've been without any darkroom facilities since mid summer when WU really locked down for COVID and being "non essential" I was out. It was not until December that I realized I was not going to be allowed back on campus for a while and decided to build a film processing only darkroom in part of my basement.

I started off with a backlog from summer 2020 with the 8x10's and then do rough scans on my Epson V700 flatbed scanner. Here's one of those efforts.

Cindy 1974

 

This year was a productive year for studio work especially considering the pandemic. I feared it would wash out the entire year and there were lot of models who would normally work with me who decided to take a pass on this year. In the end I worked with 19 people at the Tyson studio. Some of the larger group shoots that I had wanted to do, like the "muses" shoot or the Three Graces just were not practical to do in an era of social isolation.

I've taken to going back to look at older works in film mad scan some of it, this from my undergraduate days at URI. Cindy was someone who very kindly modeled for a very green young photographer. Taken with my old Nikon F2 and a 20mm lens. The film was scanned on my Epson V700 scanner.

Last studio shoot of 2020

 

I had really given up any notion that I was going to be doing anymore work in the studio this year. My dear friend Susan visited STL on her way to Louisiana and offered to pose for me again. We had done a much more extensive shoot in June together and his session was limited to the "winter studio" as the main studio was just too cold, even with the heaters running. Susan is a great model, poised and self confident and has a great camera presence. I always manage to make interesting work of her and first photographed her in 2005, 15 years ago!

These are all shot with my D850 Nikon in the one bay winter studio at Tyson.

Last shoot in the main studio for 2020

 I really thought I was done for the year photographing people but out of the blue Kelli contacted me about a shoot that we were able to put together quickly. It's really starting to cool off at Tyson at night and its keeping the studio a bit chilly.

Kelli is a reasonably new model this is only the second year we've worked together but she's very comfortable in her skin and open to the possibilities.

Pool shoot with Carol

 For the past couple of years Deb Dolgin has been very generous to allow me to photograph in her CWE pool, its a very unique pool, painted black inside and surrounded by greenery its more like a one than a pool.

I shot that day with a film Nikonos V and an Olympus TG-6. Both have advantages and drawbacks.

Pool shoot with Merry, contact sheet from the Nikonos

 I've had a Nikon Nikonos V underwater camera for years now and a real assortment of glass for it. Most recently a 20mm. This is a rough scan from a pool shoot I did with Merry.

I'm getting the film processed at Schillers and they seem to do a good job with the 35mm C-41 processing and then scanning them in on an Epson V700 scanner.