The Last Frame

Thank you for all the feedback, kind words and supportive messages about the prints I’ve been sharing recently. I can’t tell you how much this has spurred me on to make more prints in my darkroom.

I’ve spent the past couple of evenings working on a print from a photo taken earlier this week on Ilford Delta 100. I’d worked my way through this film over two days and didn’t want to go home with that one last unexposed frame.

I’d already spotted the doorway and waited just a few minutes for someone to come by. Luckily this last frame was a quick “Hello, can I take your photo?” Moment.

Delta has incredibly fine grain and strong contrasty tones. I calmed down the highlights with a split-grade exposure. Grade #0 to flatten everything before grade #5 to bring back delicately controlled contrast without flooding the detail in those rich black shadows.

The information is there, you just gotta tease it out.

Above: A contact print which steers me toward the look of the final print.

Above: Working from my initial test strip (far left) I made an exposure of 12 sec with filter #0 before introducing 2 secs strips of filter #5.

Above: A comparison test strip to see what effect a 3 sec and 4 sec filter #5 had on the darker clothing. It’s subtle.

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Thanks for stopping by. If you’d like to geek out about any of the photography processes or techniques above leave a comment.

Websites still rock, don’t they? www.markmoran.co.uk

Is Instagram still a thing?

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