I took this photograph some time ago with my Graflex 120 Press camera. An ancient beast that weighs a tonne but takes some of the best photo's you could ever want. Now I havent had time to really get into the digital cam thing yet, but i'm working on it. Now I wanted to show you a few tricks that can be done when working with negatives. There is no computer manipulation here. The final image was exactly what I wanted to see when I first stood in front of this ancient piece of equipment. The image is of an old Massey Sawyer steam engine. It still works and is used in many of North Bays parades. It dates back to the 1890's prior to the company becoming the now known, Massey Ferguson Company. I wanted the image to look as if it had been taken at the time it would have rolled out the plant and this created several problems. the sky at the time was heavily overcast so my neg was going to be flat. I did not want to use a flash on this one. The film I choose, was 120 Tri X pan 400asa. A good film but not a lot of grain at that size. Now I wanted some contrast so I used a 25A filter on the lens. (kinda like looking through welders goggles. This increased my exposure time like you wouldnt believe. Now I had to deal with the films reciprocity (the films ability to absorbe light during very long or very short exposure times) The other problem, was the abismal junkyard that the engine sat in. I needed to eliminate that (bearing in mind, all I have is a darkroom) The top of the stack (looks like the lip at the top) is actually a metal pail that was used to keep the rain out. The owner allowed me to take photo's but had instructed me in no uncertain terms that i was not to touch anything! Tripod up, camera in place, subject aligned. Now, the adding and subtracting on a piece of paper to get the exposure I needed. f5.6 @ 30 seconds aughta do it. 5 frames, bracketing 1/2 stop up and down the dial for good measure and I've got latent images on my camera. Now for the fun stuff...... Back in the darkroom, HC110 stock solution brought down to working solution B on the charts. (a very good standbye) Now I had spot metered the undercarriage because I wanted detail down there as well. Hmmmm what to do??? Push the hell outa the film.... long developing time and dam near broke my wrist agitating it. 9 minutes, plus stop and fix, and I have a pretty darn good neg to work with. Now to print the sucker.... As many magenta filters as I could get my hands on. I stacked em like pancakes. I couldnt even see the image on the tray with full light from the enlarger. Back to the paper and pencil to work out the exposure time.... Hmmmmm wide open on the lens, at 4 minutes..... This was the one and only print I made. It now hangs on my wall. Maybe digital could have done all that in less then 1/30 of a second, but man did I have fun. And the anticipation, the agony, and the joy when that image slowly appeared in the developing tray. Digital will never give you that. I hope you like the pic.

Wow! Very nice tutorial; from concept to completion. I'd guess that the long developing time and agressive agitation was the real key here, but every other step had to be calculated correctly in order to make it all work. Had to REALLY understand what you were doing as there is no "Un-Do" button!

Wow is right! Loved ready your thought process from start to final fruition....! So very cool this image too!

sigh ready=reading....

interested in ready it too :]