I shot a roll of TriX and developed it last night in a fresh bottle of Sprint developer. Sprint chemicals were established by a professor at RI School of Design. I took a darkroom lesson at the artist collective AS 220 in Providence, and was told by the tutor that the professor used to drink the chemicals to demonstrate their benign qualities. The professor is no longer on the good earth. I hope he passed from natural causes.
Writing this brings back the time with the tutor. We were going through the process of developing my roll (first time ever) and printing an image I took of a person playing the trumpet on the Providence River. He showed me how to wind film into the film reel and then turned off the lights in the darkroom. I was struggling like hell and swearing up a storm. Then the spoke……I thought he had left the room. I screamed at the top of my lungs with fright. I calmed down and got the damned film wound. I don’t drink alcohol and haven’t touched a drop since November 30, 2006 at approximately 10 p.m. We visited the bar downstairs from the darkroom twice while the film and then my print were drying. The tutor burned up the $25 fee I paid on at least 6 beers. I had coffee. The print came out ok. It is a good memory.
Anyway, I got the film developed and the negatives looked passable, but for the inevitable blanks from the Leica M3’s hasty shutter button popping off in my camera bag unintentionally. There is not much photographic wonder on the inside of a camera bag.
I wrestled with Silverfast and the Epson Scan program. I dread using a film scanner. The frame finder function in both programs are birthed from a sadist’s algorithms. The quality of the scans stunk. I was disgusted, thinking the pictures I took were all out of focus and underexposed – so much for thinking my skills obviate the need for a light meter! I threw the film strips into the basket. The latest blind obsession of challenging myself to shoot 4 X 5 film was earmarked for the crowded bad idea department.
Then I remembered having the Nikon ES2 film strip scanner for my DSLR. I mounted the 60mm macro lens and the ES2 mount. I aimed the shebang at the LED light beside my chair. Each strip of 6 shots took under a minute, with focus achieved using peaking. No waiting while the scanner whirred. No more realizing I had screwed up the resolution settings or the film type, etc. After finishing the shots, I imported the pictures into Lightroom and inverted them using the tone curve. Using the tone curve, I slid the top and bottom to the peaks on the high and low side, and from there fiddled with the level north and south for highlights and shadows. No more wrestling with the Lightroom sliders (and they work backwards and poorly after the inversion). Wow. While the images are nothing to shout about, my self-esteem is restored.
I will never use my Epson V800 again. Scanning the 35mm film in this way was a snap, and I am sure that with practice it will become an even better process.
Here are a few results from the scans. My favorite image is out of focus of a guy I met while pumping gas. I loved the hat he was sporting and his obvious enjoyment of a long ashed cigarette. I don’t often engage with strangers, but am glad for overcoming my fear. I should have taken his email address as is the usual to send the photo along, flaws and all.
So often, the images enjoyed are the imperfect ones.
