This week sees us continue the production of works ahead of the exhibition at Centrala in Digbeth.
Redscale
I had brought in my three rolls of rescale films as negatives ready for colour darkroom and enlargers. I had my three sheets of rescale XR films and chose to print from a few of the negatives in the dark room.
The table at the bottom shows the settings I used and the photos of what I created are below.
The first test strip I put through the Colenta machine came out with a weird patch on the front of the print that looked like a residue.
After a couple of efforts to get the right exposures I tried a full print and half of the sheet of 10×8 was covered in this weird film that would smudge if you wiped it with a finger.
I spoke to Dan about this and he said that perhaps the chemistry was getting close to the end of its 6 week lifetime. He also told me that I could put it in the wash in the black and white dark room to clean off the strange chemical residue. This is what I did, and after a short soak in the wash dish I wiped off the residue and saw it physically come away as a cloudy substance. I then chucked them back in the water again, before a ten minute soak and a hang up on the washing line to dry out.
I started with a photo of the wavy concrete architecture above the Dudley Zoo entrance gate from my walk around, which is documented in this post.It was a bit dark and then a bit light but I was happy with the end result of this one.
The next print I worked on was the top of a ceiling with repeated circular holes in it. This is underneath the Polar Bear pit and houses the toilets nowadays. The photos came out eventually but I wasn’t overly happy with the overall aesthetic.
I moved on to another shot from the same film #96, and this particular image was better exposed than some of the other shots, as a result I had to adjust the exposure settings of the printing process, to allow for better settings. The other negatives that are in the 45 photos are a bit weak, or a bit thin. This is down to the light meter I used and the settings I dialled into the camera being a little underexposing. There are a couple of images like this where I had upped it an extra stop, either by doubling the shutter speed (twice as much time) or reducing the aperture (making the hole larger), these look like more complete negatives and as a result print better through the enlarger process. The really thin negatives where there is hardly any detail can pull some out but it makes it all super weak and not very contrasty.
A change to Film #97 next to print off a big Z from the front entrance of the zoo. I printed off the first one and used the same settings, it looked ok. Apart from the fact that the Z was reversed. Why? I put the negatives in the neg holder the correct way, shiny side up, and checked everything else. Then I remembered that rescale film is normal film that has been turned around and the light is shot through the back of the film media. Hence the back is front and front is back, I would need to put the negatives int he holder with the emulsion side upwards. Makes sense when you think about it.
The first print got a big scratch on it as I was cleaning off the residue in the cold water tanks in the black and white dark room so I was more careful with the second image, the one printed the correct way around. It looked ok and while it’s not as obvious as the whole front of the entrance with the ZOO on it, I bet that this single Z will evoke memories for people who have been to the site, and it’s cool that it hasn’t changed at all.
After getting a successful print from this I was able to switch film to film #95 and the roof of the entrance, with the fencing and bricks included. I printed out the first full strip and it was exceptionally dark so I changed the aperture by a stop and altered time by less than a stop to reduce the overall time by a small amount. It seemed to work ok and I got a reasonable print out of it in the end. All of these prints again had to go into the dark room wash dishes to remove the chemical residue. After this they all looked to be ok and I was happy with them.
Another change to Film #96 to print out an image of Bear Ravine which is a huge curved walkway over the ground. I did a test strip and then a full print but the negative was exceptionally thin again so I found that it was difficult to get a reasonable image out of it. I now know why the scans I received back from AG were a bit weak looking, not their fault, all my problem with underexposing. As part of using film in the Bronica I think that I have learned over the last few years that I should stick an extra stop of light on it. So if I ever shoot any film in it again I will deffo do this. I have heard in the past that “Film loves Light” and the more it gets the better. Digital is thought to be difficult to get details back from blown out highlights so I’ve been recommended that I shoot a stop under when using digital.
A final change to the film #95 for a shot of a Kiosk which has people in the background. It wasn’t brilliantly successful and after the initial test strip and full print it was not massively impressive.
Scanner Time
After I’d finished with the printing in the colour darkroom I chose to go and scan the negatives in using the Epson Perfection V850 Pro scanners and hopefully these will enable me to produce an image good enough to get a print off from Jim and the printing hub or from an external printer somewhere.
I used Dan’s new notes on scanning to work out that a 4800 resolution scan would be sufficient for the 960 x 720mm (near A1 size) prints that I would likely need for the exhibition at Centrala. After all. a small 10×8″ print isn’t going to be enough to fill a section of wall at the gallery.
I sat down on the end Mac and popped out the reflective screen from the top half of the scanner, then fished out a 120 film neg holder from the little box, before giving everything a blow off with my rocket blower. I managed to scan in three films and store the images on the one drive for inclusion into my library later. Some of them scanned in really nicely and I will deffo be able to print something from these scans. Once I’ve been able to remove dust and specks etc…
Table of Enlarging Settings
Conclusion
It was good to get back into the colour dark room again and I enjoyed playing with the redscale film in the enlargers, not really having any concept of what would likely come out of the colenta machine at the end.
I found that the chemistry was a bit tired and I had to wash off the residue in the water baths, but other than that it was pretty much ok. Just a couple of scratches off rollers in the machine too, so I started putting the prints into the left side of the take-in slot.
The 10×8 prints, whilst ok are nowhere near big enough for the exhibition so I scanned the negatives in on the Epson v850 and then I can edit and hopefully come up with a print that can be output in the print hub or via some other company.
The colour dark room was troublesome but so was scanning, there are countless bits of dust and debris that lurk in the negative holders on the enlarger as well as the scanners. Doesn’t matter how much I used the blower, there was always some left. The difference being that if I print out on a huge piece of paper in the enlarger then I’d need to go and remove the blemishes or paint in the spots. On the scanned versions though, I can do this electronically so it makes it much easier.
One of the shots is already selected, see scan of Tecton Entrance above, and I’ll go through the remainder to find another couple that I can use in the exhibition.
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