Arizona Treks

Over the last week, while waiting for Aperture I printed a few negatives that were in the queue.  Now printing is actually one of my least favorite things to do.  It is tedious, time consuming, frustrating, but the results are so rewarding I would not consider having anyone else print my B&W negatives.

Today there are plethora processes and technologies for making prints.  The digital technologies have come a very long way in a very short time.  But for me, nothing can beat a well printed silver print on good paper.  Yes, I have seen some very well done inkjet prints.  They are different, not bad different, just different.  For me, I prefer the silver prints.

Fine art photography is all about the print and it is very subjective so if I make art, why not use the medium which pleases me the most.  For now, that is the traditional silver print.  And printing them myself allows me to get from the negative what I envisioned when it was shot, but also to change it up as desired.  In other words, by printing myself, I have complete control.  If it is good, I get the credit, if it is not pleasing to me, no one else needs to see it.  My skills with printing digitally are weak to say the least.  I do not find it rewarding and it is always stressful so I rarely make inkjet prints myself and have weak skills in that area.

All of my negative are scanned and managed in Aperture.  It works well for me, like a contact sheet except I can also upload the scan without making a print.  I find that scanning negatives works well for small images and those targeted to computer displays.

The last 2 negative I printed were a bit dense, well okay, were way too dense.  When I scanned them they looked terrible but I could see plenty of detail in the negative so today I printed them and am quite pleased with the prints.  So for a bit of a change, below is comparisons of negative and print scans.  Both scanes were adjusted in Photoshop.  The negatives required more adjustments than the prints simply because they were so dense to start with.

This is the negative scan.  Mot bad, but not really exciting.  It took some special processing in the scanner software and PS to get this image.  

This is the print scan.  Unfortunately the scan is not as sharp as the print and since it was printed on warmtone paper, the file was converted to greyscale to remove that influence.  The print is beautiful, crisp, and a print I will be proud to show.  The negative scan is okay for my use but not somethign to show as good work.

Once more, the negative scan.  This was a bear to scan and adjust.  There is simply too much dynamic range.  But with enough work it is not bad.  

The print scan is much nicer.  It scanned much easier but it took 2 hours to get the print right in the darkroom.  But even then I was well pleased with the print and will be proud to show it.

Most of the photos I post here are negative scans.  Many times a photo is not posted simply because the scan is poor quality or that some of the adjustments done in the darkroom are beyond my skill in Photoshop.

This weekend I hope to spend in the field.  But there are several new posts in the queue so I hope to be more regular for a while.