Planet Randy

My Bristlecone pine image on carbon was sent to Australia. I especially wanted it to be memorable to the person receiving my print since he’s a does a lot of alternative processing like I do. He told me he wanted to learn carbon printing and now he has something to look forward to.

Today, I finally receive my print from my “blind” trader. It was due in the end of November but apparently the person got a little busy. It’s an image of the ceiling from Sainte-Chappelle chapel from Paris, France and taken with a 50′s Yashica 635 TLR . It’s printed on Kentmere VC Select resin coated paper.

Not bad, well worth the wait I think.

So we decided to head out to Long Beach and take a night time shot of the Queen Mary. It’s a good opportunity to try out my new “old” 1920′s 5×7 Korona large format camera with the 1951 Kodak Commercial Ektar 12 inch (~305mm) lens. Grabbed some film, tripod, shutter cable and my dark cloth – here’s a film scan of what I saw.

It turns out, the Kodak CE was too long from our vantage but luckily I brought the Schneider 240mm lens and the field of view barely covered from bow to stern.

I used Arista’s EDU Ultra 100 film (re-branded Fomapan 100, manufactured in Czech Republic) and it’s notorious for reciprocity failure at exposures greater than 1 second. Proper exposure at F16 during this time was 30 seconds so I cooked it for 10 minutes (a wild estimate).

Whenever a patrol boat or a cruise ship would cross by the shot I just covered the lens with the dark slide and compensated for more time, a benefit of long exposures. Once I got home, I souped it in Rodinal 1:50 for 8 minutes with the Jobo drum.

Next time I’m bringing the 75mm so that I can use my home made 5×7 to 4×5 reducing back.

Sent out another print to Europe and I decided to print this image from Xcaret, Mexico. The glossy FB print needed some dodging to get more detail inside the structure.

This 35mm film is the Legacy Pro 400 (re-branded Fuji Neopan 400) I under exposed it by 2 stops giving an equivalent ISO rating of 1600. Stand developed it with Rodinal 1:100 for about an hour in the hotel room, making the bathroom a makeshift dark room at night. I didn’t want to bring it back home un-processed as TSA or Mexico’s airport security X-rays might fog it.

So far I’ve been getting prints from the exchange. I’ve read others are not so lucky, either its lost in the mail or their donor just don’t send one.

Well… finally got around to print one for APUG’s BPX10 assignment – this one is going to France. It’s a snap of Darwin Falls near Death Valley, a waterfall at the edge of the desert can you believe that?

Printed on 8×10 Arista EDU Ultra Glossy VC Fiber Paper, dipped and dunked in Dektol, then fixed on Kentmere’s liquid fixer.

I recently participated in APUG’s Blind Print Exchange program where analog photographer’s blindly exchange prints (like a Christmas White Elephant). The sole criteria is, the print from conception to creation must be completely analog. They are now on round 10 and I’m happy to say I received my print.

The prints you get are exceptional both in image composition and print quality. It gives me the opportunity to see what other people do with film photography. The last round of BPX, I received a palatinum/palladium print – a print process I am yearning to learn. It’s very expensive because of the materials use to make the emulsion, but the image quality you get is unbelievable.