Wet Printing My Grandfathers Negatives

[480sparky]

When my dad's mother passed away in 1983 (his dad died in 1960), I took ownership of all the photos she had saved from before they were married until 1960.

My grandfather was a very avid photographer, and was rarely without a camera. I have over 1400 of his film negatives alone, which I have in the past year sorted, cataloged, digitized and placed in archival storage sleeves. In all, they take up two 3" binders.

Last year, I got back into printing black & white film the old fashioned way.... with chemicals in a darkroom. Well, not a proper darkroom, just my master bath temporarily rearranged. The enlarger I got is capable of holding negatives up to 4x5".

I recently realized I now had the ability to actually make real, genuine 'wet' prints of my grandfathers negatives. Although I have digitized all of them and it would be stupid-easy to email the files off to a lab, I decided to take a different path. Yes, actually put his old negatives into my enlarger and make wet prints.

I started going through all the digitized images, and selected 24 candidates. Mostly, shots of my dad and his four siblings. Most were taken in the 30's and 40's. From those, I narrowed them down to 10.

There was only one problem, however. The vast majority of the negatives are not of a standard, 'modern' size. They are 4½ x 5¾. Since 5 inches is the maximum for this enlarger, I had no chance to find a carrier for such an antiquated format size.


I did, however, find out that not only is a 4x5 carrier standard, but there were at least two version of a 4x5 carrier that had two thin glass plates in it. Primarily, it was to hold curled film perfectly flat. But I thought, "Hmmmm. I wonder if I could put some of these odd-sized negs in and make some prints?"

So this morning, my phone notified me that the glass carrier I won on ebay last week was 'Out for Delivery'. So down to the local brick-n-mortar camera store to drop a c-note on a box of top-notch paper. When I came home, there was a box at the door. The carrier had been delivered. I was now set to start printing my grandfather's negatives... the same way he did back in the 20's and 30's.

My plan is to take all 10 negatives and make 5 8x10s of each and put them in an album. 10 images, a set for each of his children. Taken by their father, and printed using the same method he used.

I cleaned up the carrier (the glass was filthy!), and just a moment ago I put the first of my selections into the enlarger. After making the proper adjustments, I brought the image into focus.

A shiver actually went down my spine. I was looking back in time. I was peering at my dad, my aunt and three uncles. The shot was taken around 1936 or 1937 by their ages. Even though I had seen the negative before, and even prints that had been made way back then, and even the processed image I created digitally from the negative........ there was just something magical about looking at that reversed image that has survived almost 80 years.

My dad would be the one right smack dab in the middle.

After dark (my 'darkroom' is not so light-tight), I'll pour out the chemicals into the trays, fire up the timers, and pay tribute to a man and a photographer I never had the chance to know.


Stay tuned!

 

[sm4him]

Sparky, that is just about the coolest thing ever!

I, too, have a bunch of my grandfather's old, odd-size negatives. I, too, have already scanned and digitized--well, MOST of--them.
But that would be SO cool to actually work with them that way--in my case, NOT the way my grandfather did, but the way it would have been done then. My grandfather, as far as I know, never did his own developing. Not sure why, because it's the sort of thing he would have absolutely loved learning to do.
Probably because he traveled so much, and the supplies were likely hard/impossible to find in many of the places he lived.

 

[Dave442]

Nice, looks like an interesting project. I just did contact some prints with some old family film as my enlarger only went to 2-1/4" x 2-1/4". I think at that time (early 1900's) it was more common to just make a contact size prints from the film.
What lens are you using on the enlarger for that size film? You did not mention if you had also picked up a lens for the larger format negative.

 

[photoguy99]

Sounds awesome!

 

[vintagesnaps]

Wonderful story, that looks like so much fun to do. I imagine your family will love having prints from the original negatives.

 

[480sparky]

First image is complete.

I decided to make 6 of each... so I can have a set.

 

[ByronBrant]

Very cool Ken!

 

[dxqcanada]

That's great !!!
I wish I had some old negs from my family photo's ... sadly they never decided to keep any (though they were never really photographers).

 

[480sparky]

Second selection:

 

[limr]

They look fantastic, Sparky! Well done Can't wait to see more.

 

[terri]

These are fantastic! One of the reasons film is to be cherished. You have a family treasure (several, even)!

I've run black tape along the sides of a carrier when I've had those odd-sized, old negatives. It ain't purty, but it serves as acting carrier on the fly.

 

[gsgary]

Just think what is going to happen in the future with digital you will have F - - - all even one of the people who was involved in developing the internet now at Google says photos videos and data is going to be lost in the future

 

[480sparky]

Just think what is going to happen in the future with digital you will have F - - - all even one of the people who was involved in developing the internet now at Google says photos videos and data is going to be lost in the future

.......................................................

 

[runnah]

Flagrant copyright violations.

 

[timor]

Flagrant copyright violations.

Who is paying royalties to Leonardo Da Vinci ? For displaying Mona Lisa an charging tickets to see it ?