Abstracts

[tgtaylor]

I have no idea...



Do you?

Thomas

[jp]

Mixing up my Man Ray and Aaron Siskind in the darkroom making some photograms.

When I print a proof sheet of negatives (in print file pages) and there are unused space on a page, I often grab something in the darkroom and make a little photogram in that empty spot. I used a cotton glove and was pleasantly surprised by the texture and mix of tones when exposed properly. I liked it enough to dedicate some more sheets of 8x10 paper to it. It has an element of realism because it's life size and hand/fingers are something we instinctively consider real like an xray, but it's also very abstract and gestural and without physiological limits our hands have. Very suitable to our "post-fact-world".

img489 by Jason Philbrook, on Flickr


img488 by Jason Philbrook, on Flickr

[jp]

At the Ice Pond, Sequinland road, Reid State Park, Georgetown Maine. January 2016.
4x5 speed graphic with 9" Gundlach Hyperion soft focus lens, tmax 400 tmy2 film in pyrocat hdc.

img493 by Jason Philbrook, on Flickr

[plaubel]

My favourite Amaryllis Hippostratum at home.

Tyco Xray film
Helvetia Extra Rapid 500mm at f/8
12x16" contact printed on Fomabrom



I have to retouch some scratches caused by the darkslide..

Ritchie

[koraks]

Ritchie, that is very fascinating indeed (and as beautiful as it is fascinating!) Can you elaborate a bit on how you made this image?

[plaubel]

Thanks, Koraks,

first I grew up some Amaryllis onions as I do it every year :-)
The blossoms here original are greenish-yellow, with darker red stripes.

My idea has been:
I simply wanted to avoid black lines, given by orthochromatic film to the red tones, and I didn't want to see much more than smooth grey lines in front of mostly whitish background.

All together with less DOF and some blur, of course, but in missing an ULF-SF lens I made some experiments with the lensgroups from the old Helvetia brass lens; flipping the front group gave nice results to me.

Then it took time to find the right position of the plant together with a pleasuring focus point and a nice light.

For measurnig the light of close ups I always measure directly on the groundglass, but this do not say much to the result, but to my own method.

Now I only had to push up the tonalities for some zones by overexposure, and so I exposed far long for 30 seconds at f/8 wide open.
Developing in well diluted "Rodinal" and under red light in a tray brought some control to the highlights.
I wanted brightness, so I developed a bit longer instead of shorter in the case of overexposure.

That's it :-)
Ritchie

[Greg]

Galvin View Camera
75mm f/1.9 Wollensak Oscillo-Anastigmat lens

[koraks]

Ritchie, thanks for walking us through the details - the process is more straightforward than I had imagined, but the devil is of course in the detail. Great job on that image!

Greg, that one is fascinating! Is it an actual 'scope image?

[Greg]

Is it an actual 'scope image?

If by "scope image" you mean microscope, no a microscope was not used.

Image actually taken outside "in the field", though don't take the word "field" literally.

Image as seen on ground glass. Negative was scanned, levels adjusted, and image>adjustments>invert to get positive image. Slight crop.

Here's another one

[koraks]

Ah no, I meant oscilloscope under the impression that this is what the lens was originally intended for. Not that it matters, it remains a fascinating image! I can't come up with what it may actually be