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Showing posts with the label 8x10

Orthochromagic: The Black Rose

Back in the beginning of photography, film and plates were orthochromatic. Orthochromatic means the material isn't sensitive to red light. That makes processing easier, since then it's possible to navigate a darkroom, load film, and even develop "by inspection".  But since any subject with the color red in it became darker with Ortho film, certain scenes became problematic. Blue skies were rendered white, skin color with more red pigment went dark, freckles and zits were emphasized.   In the early part of the 20th Century, panchromatic films became the norm. Ortho film was still the norm for many technical uses of photography. For example copywork, typesetting, etc. But with panchromatic film, tonalities of the world around us were more accurately mapped to their associated gray tones. Today, when film photography itself is already a rarity, I've opted to play with the unusual characteristics of film including the color sensitivity. What happens to a red rose on a

Seeing Through Flowers: Shooting Flora on 8x10" xray film.

In my free time, I like to use the darkroom at Mills College. I've been experimenting with X-ray film just because it's so cheap and there's plenty available. Recently it occurred to me that some areas I have access to aren't in use. So for a long weekend, I co-opted a little gallery space " Slide Space 123 " to do some shooting.  The natural light in Slide Space is nice. There are white walls, and plenty of room to navigate. At one point I had a 4x5 (an old Toyo my high school teacher Mr Bernucci gave me,) My Linhof 5x7 and my red bellows 8x10 that my grandfather gave me all setup swapping cameras for similar scenes. So far I've only developed the 8x10 xray films. I had trays setup in a darkroom and would shoot a sheet and walk it over and develop it immediately afterwards.    See more here

Xray Film, Ringlights and Flowers

  snapshot of 8x10 negative  At my school darkroom where I work I came in on my day off to play. I've had an idea of something I've wanted to try for a long time. The idea would take a few things I can't easily put together. Patience, time, room to photograph, and room to develop right next door. Yesterday the stars aligned. Here's the deal. Xray film is cheap. It has a unique look due to it's orthochromatic character. Ortho films aren't sensitive to red light. So two factors should be clear: you can develop under a red safelight, kinda like paper. And that any red in your motiv will be rendered dark. I recently bought a beautiful Componon-S factory mounted in a shutter from a friend. Normally lenses of this sort are used for enlarging. But such lenses are also well suited for closeups. This lens has a 49mm filter thread, and I have the adapter to my cheap Vivitar ring flash.  What I ended up doing was setting up two large format cameras: a 4x5 and