Note to self: Solarol does not last

That's it really--all I wanted to say or note at this point:  Solarol does not stand the test of time.  We mixed up the can (the whole can, mind you) at the end of January and when I went to get some of the stock last weekend (mid-Mayish) it had turned a beer-piss brownish-yellow color.  The chemicals were still able to impact the prints, but it took longer and the Mackie line effect wasn't nearly as rich or contrasty.  So yeah.  I ordered another can--mainly because this stuff is getting harder to find--but this time around, I won't prep the whole can but measure the two powders out and mix smaller, hopefully single-use, batches. 

oatmeal pinhole test (no bueno)

I decided to dig out of storage the oatmeal pinhole camera that I made in 2008 and test it out yesterday. I begin by saying that I was really eager to test this camera--not only because I finally could (i.e., having acquired paper developer, trays, tongs, a safelight and wee bit of darkroom experience), but also because I'd yet to work with a camera that offered a curved film plane. But holy-no-good! I'm just confounded by the results. I actually opted to begin this post with what I consider to be the only decent image of the bunch and this hasn't yet been inverted or made into a positive. Things looked pretty promising with this one, in fact, when I pulled it out of the fixer. Problem was that it looked really, well, problematic, when I inverted it in Photoshop.

From what I could tell, the canister didn't have any major light leaks or other problems. I had painted the whole inside of the oatmeal container flat black when I made it and save for needing to apply a bit more black tape to the inside--I wanted to make sure that the pinhole was still securely attached to the inside of the camera--I didn't see any major issues. But my results seem to want to beg to differ. Holy yuck.

I began the test by taking a few outdoor shots. The sky was bright, but there wasn't any direct sun to contend with. My sense was that it was perfect pinhole-testing weather. I used 5x7 sheets of paper and since I knew that I wouldn't be developing them one-by-one, I just began bracketing shots--my first exposure was 30 seconds, then 45, then a minute. For the camera close-ups and indoor shots, I went a bit longer, anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes. On the bright side, I can say this: There weren't any blank sheets of paper post-exposure. In this way, I knew my exposure times were at least in the ball park. On the less-than-sunny-side-of-things, the images all had major problems in the form of weird dots and squiggles and light leaks (see sampling of images at the end of this post). One way of accounting for the oddness is that I didn't mask well or completely enough the backside of the aluminum can I was using for the pinhole. I also appear to have light leaking in around the bottom of the canister. At this point, I think I'd rather cut my losses with this pinhole and build another rather than monkey with this one.

I did think to take set-up shots during yesterday's session--this is something I've been meaning to do. . .or to do more of. It's one thing, I think, to talk about process and/or show results of a certain process but I think it can be much more helpful to actually see aspects of the process. Perhaps it was a good thing that I waited to develop most of the negatives--that I didn't shoot one, develop one, etc. Still otherwise put, had I seen the earlier results, I don't think I would have taken as many shots. And I definitely wouldn't have bothered with set-up/process shots for this session.

With the two images below, I try to provide a view of what the set-up or process looked like and I contrast this with the final result(s). I thought that perhaps camera shake/movement was to blame for some of the funkiness in the first images I created, so I used an slr to weigh down the oatmeal container. Also, instead of trying to vertically center the 5x7 paper in the canister, I pushed the paper to the bottom of the container, hoping this would make a difference. The jury is still out on that.












I did have more success and much happier results working with the 3-a folding brownie. This is, I must say, an amazing camera. I just need to get a better handle on the exposure times for this one. The image below again shows the set-up for the shot contrasted with the final shot. This was a 60 second exposure at f/16.










A sampling of the oatmeal pinholes appears below. Listed beneath each image is the length of the exposure:














10 minute exposure (indoors)













45 second exposure













60 second exposure

chromo-no-no!

As I happened to have in my possession the proper chemicals along with a handout titled "Quick and Easy Chromoskedasic Sabbattier," I decided this morning to try my hand at this rather daunting process. Yipes. Okay. To be fair, it wasn't that the process was even that daunting. It had more to do with me. Specifically so, with my resistance to following some of the key tips offered throughout the very short handout, such as: 1.) For best results, use warmtone paper [I didn't have any but it is on order]; 2.) For best results use an image with "appreciable areas of white" as the colors "will only appear where there is white in the print" [I was Sir Speedy this morning and just grabbed whatever negatives I could find], and finally, 3.) "Don't rush the process." [Again, I was Sir Speedy and rushed everything, including, apparently, carefully reading the whole handout.]

What I liked about the handout was this--the way it began: "Chromoskedasic is a unique darkroom process that provides fun darkroom experimentation for these who like to put 'play' back into the darkroom" (emphasis added). A few lines down, there was this: "Saying the word 'chromoskedasic' is more complex than doing the process, ultimately. It is a perfect one to teach to students to loosen them up in the darkroom." Yes! Loose, easy and playful! I really liked these lines and they were, I think, largely to blame for my thinking that I could stop attending carefully to the handout from that point forward. Indeed.

Yet had I kept reading, I would have encountered this next cautionary line: "However, as with any experimental darkroom process, matching the correct image to meld well with the process is key." Like I almost said to start: "Ooops."

Having had time to revisit the handout, what I can say by way of the process proper is this:

The quick and easy version of the process involves the use of two chemicals, a stabilizer and activator. Both chemicals are mixed 1:4 in separate containers. A negative with "appreciable areas of white" is exposed on photo paper and developed as usual. [Note to self: This does not mean that it is selectively developed, even if this is one's usual way of doing things.] The image is then drained and rinsed in a water bath for half a minute. At this point, the normal room lights can be turned on and the print is placed in a flat-bottomed tray. Warning: At this point, the unfixed image will begin to change color--mine became bluish-purple. The stabilizer is then painted selectively across the image. At this point, the darker colors should have turned yellow. I got a little of this at times, but I was definitely expecting more yellow. After a minute or two [Note to self: You should have actually waited a minute or two] the activator is selectively applied in places one "desires a dark brown shift. " Sigh.

Now this image of the staircase at the psychiatric hospital up the street could have been really good. Really. This was the first image I experimented with. Everything was going swimmingly as I was actually getting some browns and purples and reds in the image. Thinking that more is necessarily always better [as I'm learning though, where the darkroom is concerned the opposite seems to be true], I decided that I desired "silvering out" and began selectively spraying the image with dektol developer. [Note to self: Find out what "silvering out" is before deciding you desire it.] I repeat: Ooops. The image just smeared. And kept smearing. Perhaps the directions should have read instead: "If smearing the entire image is desired, spray it with non-diluted dektol."

Feeling fairly confident that I had messed this up, but not wanting to appear to be a quitter and spoil-sport, I finished off the process as recommended by rinsing, fixing and washing the image.

I tried another image of the stairs at the hospital. There was a wee bit of color shifting happening here. I was hoping things were moving in the right direction.

. . .I was hoping. But things never quite took off. There were some interesting effects/textures happening here, but not the pronounced color shifts I had been expecting. By the by, this is kinda what hoping for.

Reasoning that a warmtone paper or a better set of negatives might, in fact, have made an "appreciable" difference in my work, but not wanting to waste the chemicals, I grabbed one of my favorite "found" negatives, deciding to finish out the session by testing the different papers I did have on hand. A sampling appears below:


expired kodabromide fiber paper developed with dektol









expired kodak polycontrast rapid II RC paper developed with dektol









arista VC paper developed with dektol

third time's a charm?

cause i definitely didn't have beginner's luck with my pinhole adventure and after this second-go round, i'm thinking that this is the way i'll be going in the near future.

i was feeling decidedly hopeful about the second test roll since i had (at least from my perspective) made the second pinhole at least 1/2 the size of the first. since the images on the first test roll were all over-exposed, i kept with the same exposure/time guide, thinking the images on the second roll would be closer to normal. no dice. problem was that i took a good number of shots outside, around campus, and had little idea of what i was doing since the first test shots were all indoors. so much for controlling one's variables. and i meant to do more by way of bracketing shots with the second roll but, well, ended up not doing that either.

while i love, love, love the perspective one can get with the matchbook pinhole (reason enough to keep revamping and retesting my diy matchbook), i can't help but feel disappointed with what i consider to be the rather cartoon-like quality of the first and second test rolls. i thank goodness i shot color with these since it provides hints to what the image is supposed to be of--more or less.

while waiting for the new camera to arrive, i've been tempted to try yet again with this one--well, after creating a new, still smaller-sized pinhole. the main deterrent to this (besides having a book to write and 30-some student projects to grade and not having anything with which to make a smaller size pinhole) is the time involved with carefully uptaping and then carefully retaping the mechanism. and starting it all again from scratch, cutting up another matchbook, etc. is simply out of the question. but who knows--if it turns out that tomorrow or the next day is one of those crazy sky days (i.e., bright blue with clouds), i might be tempted to get out the electrical tape and load another test roll.

faux bratz cam pinholes (a sampling)

with the help of this most excellent resource, i tried making my own matchbox pinhole camera, starting it last night, finishing it this morning. i then shot and developed a test roll. hmmm.

okay, to be totally honest, this was the look i was hoping for. very optomistic, i know. but what i ended up getting. . . well, the final images (see below) looked like they might instead have been shot with my modified bratz cam. sigh. i'm guessing that the size of the pinhole was a wee bit too big.

if i had to list the things at which i decidedly do not excel, the list would include driving, taking/making accurate measurements, taping things carefully, cutting things accurately (complicating things is my aversion to using most sharp or dangerous tools, but especially exacto knives). bracketing the driving issue, all of these other skills were needed for a proper pinhole construction. if nothing else, i am hopeful and persistent so after seeing my finished products, i revamped my matchbox pinhole, subbing out the old pinhole for a new, more slimly-pointed version. we'll see how test roll two goes.

goop and play

despite promising myself that my next polaroid experiment would be an emulsion lift, i tried goop (gooping?) yesterday with the help of this site. i had read that any films slower than, say, 3000 might not work--all or that well--but i saved the negative part of a color image of the study and tried scanning that in as well. (see below) my original plan--after using up the last of the fuji color pack--was to try some of polaroid film to see how that compared with the fuji color film. instead, i opted to go with fuji b/w 3000 so i could see what a goopable negative looked like. i intentionally underexposed the image above in hopes of having a better negative to work with. i ended up getting more solarization than i wanted/expected/hoped for. (click to see postive image)

the big chill

well, diana+ and i are (once again, what's new?) not speaking. if we were, i'm guessing the livingroom conversation today would have gone something like this:


me: sigh
diana+: [mocking me] sigh
me: what?
diana+: what?
me: wtf? quit mocking me--you're always mocking me. what's your problem?
diana+: i don't have a problem. the truth is, you've always been ambivalent about me. you don't think i pick up on that? the holga comparisons, the way you are always thinking, "why can't your plastic be thicker, sturdier? why does the loading and forwarding of film have to be such a grand production?"
me: so that's why sometimes you work and sometimes you don't?
diana+: 'xactly.
me: sigh
diana+: [mocking me] sigh

and it's true. i was more than a little disappointed when the diana+ arrived. and i did judge its weight, feel and temperament based on my interactions with the holga. truth was, i felt a little duped. the diana+ was the second film camera i purchased this summer (the holga was obviously the first). i had the camera shipped to my mom's as i was going home to participate in a relay for life event and figured that i could test out the diana--if not during that event, at least while i was at my mom's. i remember when the box arrived--how i couldn't wait to show my mom this new camera. i remember opening the box in front of her, lifting the diana out of the box and feeling. . .well, duped. the diana was about 20 bucks more than the holga was and it felt, well, like a two dollar camera. i liked the look of the diana but wasn't at all prepared for how cheap, how plastic, how delicate it felt. certainly not worth the 60 bucks or whatever i paid for it. maybe diana sensed, even then, my ambivalence, my doubt that anything good could come of (or from) this relationship. actually, i immediately regretted having it shipped to my mom's as i wondered how i'd get this back home without it ending up crushed into a million little pieces.

i got the diana home in one piece (well, technically three since that's what she comes with) and since june i've had occasion to take diana with me on other trips. but i have to say, when i take her out, load her up, i'm always thinking, "okay this will be a total crapshoot." and i don't mean "crapshoot" in the way taking any image with the diana or holga might be a crapshoot with lightleaks or other kinds of quirkiness. i mean "crapshoot" because i may or may not remember to take the lens cap off, the film might not advance easily (or seemingly at all). and even if everything on my end seemed to have gone all right, well, i can usually look forward to blank frames, to grossly over- or under-exposed images, to the sound of the shutter maybe working, and, yes, the fear always remains that diana will end up smashing (or being smashed) into a million little pieces. and the truth is, it does really bother me--how non-substantial this (not particularly inexpensive) camera feels whether in hands or hanging from the shoulder. often times, i left feeling just as duped as i felt when opening the box in front of my mom.

i'd like to say that i keep going back to diana+ because i like a challenge. and this would, i suppose, be half-true. one of the reasons i keep going back is that i want to be right and i want diana+ to admit it has been wrong. and part of me thinks that if i can work more successfully with diana+, i won't continue to feel duped.

to be fair, when the images are good, they are very good. although the image of the panda below always makes me sad, makes me want to cry (but this is basically true of animals in/and zoos in general), it remains one of my favorites. most tellingly though, i'm always misremembering things about this photo. i always think, for instance, that it was taken with the holga. (yeah, diana, i know. paybacks are gonna be a bitch.)


















on my thanksgiving day pinhole woes: having recently claimed that there was nothing new i wanted to try on the photography front, it occurred to me that i wasn't trying hard enough to find new things to try. i turned to the alt group discussion threads and immediately learned about goop. half-truth: i saw this term there but had to search elsewhere to understand what it was. goop will have to wait since i've currently got non-goopable film in the polaroid and i've sworn that the next polaroid-related thing i'm going to try is an emulsion lift.

i've been fascinated with (and very much wanting to understand better and then to try) pinhole photography. i bought a couple of books pinhole photography but found this to be a very daunting prospect. i had taken a couple of pinhole shots with the diana months ago and thought that maybe i'd try my hand at this again and celebrate thanksgiving in a pinhole kinda fashion. since the matter of exposure times is one of the things i find most daunting about pinhole photography, i did a search on flickr and came upon this resource, put in an f-stop of 150 and printed out the exposure chart. diana+ and i (and my most sturdy tripod and dependable timer) were ready to go.

or three of us were, anyway. after setting up and taking/timing seven shots (the bulk of which were seven to fourteen minute exposures), i looked down and wondered if it was a huge problem that i'd neglected to flip the top switch from "N" to "B". i had the bottom switch set to "P" but couldn't remember if the top one needed to be on "B". i'm not, of course, blaming diana+ for this but it serves well as an example of why and how it is that we oftentimes do not get along well.

so fine. i develop this roll and since it's thanksgiving, i try not to focus on the seven blank frames that seem to be mocking me, and try to give thanks for the five frames shot after the lever had been switched to "B".

as i often find myself thinking/saying after working with diana+, "well, i guess i should be glad that there was at least one halfway decent shot out of the 12." (see phone image below)










. . .not wanting to admit defeat--particularly not on thanksgiving, i optimistically reasoned that the image of the paintbrushes below might serve as a catalyst for going back and reading up on the parallax error since i've finally experienced it.










. . .and here's one for the learning curve: this 49 minute exposure of 2 cats sleeping on a bed. no muy bueno. but i'm glad i tried it.











meanwhile: still committed to beating diana+ at her own game, i decide to reload but this time i use a roll of 400 speed film hoping that this might. . .well, speed things up.

and the good news--the great news, really--is all 12 frames had something scannable on them. not all of the images were good, but this hardly matters when it comes to my diana+ collaborations. what matters is that i saw something on the negatives for all 12 frames. there were, of course, a couple of accidental double-exposures. the not-so-funny thing is that these were almost back-to-back accidents. when i realized what i had done with the first botched shot, i moved the tripod upstairs, saying to myself, "okay, as soon as you get up there, don't forget to advance the film." but i did forget. and then i forgot again with the very next shot. could it be that there's something about my touching that most thin, fragile plastic body that automatically renders me, well, much denser, more thick-headed than usual?

but i really, really liked the mary jane shot (below) and the other two below that were okay-enough. mr. pinhole did say that the exposure times might need to be tweaked and where the mary jane shot is concerned, i really wish i would have gone longer than 13 mintues. all the shots, actually, could have used a little more light, a little more time. problem is, i'm not sure how much to increase things by--ten percent, twenty? i suppose once diana+ and i are again on speaking terms, we might work this out by restaging something like the mary jane shot and taking a series of exposures increasing the time by 5 percent, then 10 and so on. in the meantime, i've got some research to do. . .

negativity

The last batch of negatives I had developed was really disappointing—and I’ll admit now that this was all me, having nothing to do with the place I have the film developed. Of the five rolls I sent in, only one came back with decent (read: properly exposed) images on it. No surprise that this roll was shot with the Nikon n50—as long as I pay attention to what the camera tells me about shutter speed and aperture, the images look okay. Don’t get me wrong, I love shooting film but the waiting part (i.e., having the film sent out to be developed and waiting for it to be sent back) is hard. Over the past year, I’ve gotten used to the immediate feedback you get from shooting digital—I can see what’s working, what’s not and adjust my behavior (and the camera’s shutter speed and aperture) accordingly. The lessons are immediate and so seem to stick.

When the box of negatives arrived, I looked first at the rolls of 120 I ran through the Holga and the Diana. I wasn’t expecting much as I had kind of suspected that I was keeping the shutter open for too long. Seeing the negatives confirmed that. Feeling far more hopeful, I looked at the two rolls of 35mm I ran through the Holga. I had been feeling optimistic at this point because the modification part seemed to go well and that had been my biggest concern. But then I notice that almost every negative was green—not entirely green but most were mostly green. While this seemed to signal a slight improvement over the last batch of negatives (I could actually see what I had photographed), I’m thinking the green is definitely not a good thing. I scan the first couple of images and come to see that green means red. And then I start trying to figure out where and why things went so horribly wrong. So I’m thinking it’s mainly about my yellow tape mistake which—in turn—has to do with my being too cheap and too impatient to send away for the black gaffer’s tape like my copy of Plastic Cameras recommended Holga owners do. Not wanting to use duct tape inside the camera (i.e., to keep the batteries for the flash in place, to buffer the areas over which the 35mm film is pulled, to mask the red window on the back of the camera), and not having any gaffer’s tape to hand, I decide to use the yellow tape I recently purchased at a teacher’s store. No bueno.

At this point, I'm angry at myself for being so stupid (and cheap)--though I'm still not sure that the yellow tape was/is the whole problem or only problem that I'm having here--and I was just going to file away that batch of negatives, revamp the holga (using black electrical tape this time) and try again. I decided instead to see what, if anything, photoshop could help me do to salvage any of these images. With the help of the channel mixer and gradient map, I was able to come up with images I could live with:

the learning curve

So I decided to try some fuji 160 iso film (I had been using 400) in my holga and diana and to compensate for the difference in speed/light sensitivity, I went bulb-setting crazy. and I mean crazy, holding the shutter open for 15-45 seconds, maybe longer. And this--entitled "hmmm"--was the result. You know a shot is really bad when you can’t even determine where you were or what you were shooting. I am assuming I was in the woods, but I’m not sure. I’m also not sure if I had an extra fun filter on the holga or not. Bottom line, I’ve lost my rights to use the bulb setting. It doesn’t matter if I’m shooting in the pitch dark, no more bulb setting for me, at least for awhile.