Very first selfdeveloped film

Lyanna

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I've recently started a studies, Communitation and Multi Media Design, and one of the things we are learning right now is photography. In the last quarter of this year we'll be covering digital photography, but for now, we are studying perspective. Our last assignment was to shoot perspective with our analog camera, and to develop and print the pictures ourselves.

This was my very first time in a darkroom, and I was wondering what you all thought! I'm not used to scanning pics, so the colors are a little freaky I think.

delft.jpg


perspective.jpg


fragile.jpg
 
Wow!!! A natural in the darkroom!!! Great shots all around!!! The last is my fav.
 
Thank you! It took me forever to get them developed though, I threw out more than I kept actually. I am still not satisfied with the contrast, and some areas are blown out. Analog photography is so very different form digital ... I can now imagine that analog photographers sometimes say that digital photography is more easy. I like both forms though ... but I must say that I am tempted to start building my own darkroom here :)
 
Very good for your first go. I was thinking more contrast on the first picture which it probably has on the film, but after looking at it a bit I like the tones.
 
So these are scanned from a print you made or from a negative? Im thinking the first.

They all look good, but the blacks dont really seem black enough. Im not sure how to fix this when printing. I know filteres lets you boost or decrease the contrast, it may just be a shorter exposure time to make the darker stuff darker?

Then again there is pc and curves, takes a few seconds. :0) But then you cant have a true darkroom print that way.
 
This is indeed a scan from a print I made in the darkroom. I didn't fiddle around with contrast in Photoshop, just tried to adjust the coloring a little cause it came out really pinkish from the scan. And yes, I was fiddling around mightily with filters in the darkroom itself so that I could make the black stuff blacker, but after more than three hours and dozens of prints I threw away I simply gave up :)

So, the first pic isn't really all that it should be I think, I think it could be better where contrast is concerned. Next friday I am giving it another go, will post the results as well! By the way, you said shorter exposure time, don't you mean longer?

Thanks for the great feedback, and I will surely keep on trying :)
 
Yes, you would need a longer time to get a better exposure and get deeper blacks and better (less blown out) whites. But for your first time, those are great! The first two, especially the first, are great for your theme of perspective. and the third one is just really cool by itself! Love the DOF of the background trees. Keep up the good work!
 
I was thinking more time = more light = less black. So perhaps a shorter exposure with a larger aperature may make the blacks better?

When you do a test strip, is there any that give a nice black?
 
Exactly *g* ... it was the common mistake most of us made.

The more light you let fall on the paper through the enlarger, the longer the chemical process continues .... and the blacker the shades become :)

I was trying to explain to one of my fellow students and he looked at me puzzled and said: the more light, the lighter it gets right? Sounds like a paradox to me!

I need to find a better balance between a higher contrast and a longer exposure time I think, but it is a fine-tuning really. Plus, I need to develop a feel for it. But eh, the longer you try the better things become right? I might have developed a true enthusiasm for analog photography here :)
 
It makes sense to me now. Ive done some darkroom stuff, but only for a few months and that ended last May or so. Plus I never really gave it thought, how the light effected it, was just thinking in terms of film.

What if you did a super long exposure? Like an hour with a really small aperature? :0)
 

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