That about sums up what I’ve been doing recently. I’ve been participating in some APUG print exchanges and the 20th round of the postcard exchange. I’ve also spent all of this current semester at university working on photopolymergravures. The important distinction between photopolymergravures and photogravures is that I use a sheet of pre-sensitised material, and not a sheet of copper that I impart a photograph onto via acid etching and a carbon tissue resist. Admittedly I took the coward’s way out, but I couldn’t source all the materials for real Gravure printing on a student’s budget…
You’ll be receiving details and photographs on all of this shortly. But for now, I’ve been addressing postcards all day and I’m sleepy. So have some more of the result of my reading;
“Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.”
-Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Slaughterhouse-5, chapter 3.
soon, but in the mean time, I’ve been reading between work.
Like all Earthlings at the point of death, Mary Young sent faint reminders of herself to those who had known her. She released a cloud of telepathic butterflies, and one of those brushes the cheek of Dwayne Hoover, nine miles away.
Dwayne heard a tired voice from somewhere behind his head, even though no one was back there. It said this to Dwayne: “Oh my, oh my.”
-Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., p.66
Friday, December 18, 2009
filterfind.net
I’ve not ordered from them personally, but they’re well regarded within the community. A source for all those crazy filter sizes like 40mm, or 36mm slip on, or Series type filters – all of that stuff, in one spot.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
I’m really starting to loathe my film scanner, at this stage I’d be much happier to make some contact prints. But my Darkroom is a mess, so for now this will have to do…
Another test roll for the Mamiya 6 that I’m restoring. Ilford HP5+@400EI, xtol stock, scanned on my film scanner that can’t for the life of it hold the film flat. The negs look like they’ll print well from an enlarger, however, despite the depressing contrast in the scans. Still need to get the shutter serviced (None of the speeds are accurate, these were all shot at 1/250 – which is actually around 1/103), and a new bellows made up. Apart from that, it’s a very nice camera in use.
I picked up two rolls of this today to shoot in my Mamiya 6 (still getting the rangefinder calibrated), and they were both useless. I’ve heard some reasonable reviews in the past, and shot some Shanghai GP3 as well, so didn’t see any risk in it. The problem was that the film detached from the backing paper as it was being loaded, wandered off, and got stuck. Without the film stuck to the backing paper, well, all is lost. When I did find the adhesive tag that was meant to fix the film to the paper, it had no “sticky-ness” left to it at all. It happened with both rolls, which was disappointing.
I grabbed a roll of HP5+ on the way home.
I’d still be interested to shoot some in 35mm, but in 120 I wont risk it again. Just a warning to be wary, hopefully it was just a bad batch.