Self-development, education on the ubiquitous web

A thread on recommended sites, channels, etc. would too encompassing a label. I'm asking really about other resources for photographers somwwhat like myself, for inspiration and education.

This forum is both an anchor point and a jumping off point for many of us, and invaluable as both. Often, the links to members' sites given in their signature lines, open up new vistas of work and ideas.

I don't have a lot of time to spend searching, but I have yet to find another site with the high average quality of work found here, and have found a number other such fora to be disappointing, although some include very knowledgeable people in other specialties -- smaller formats, or areas such as photojournalism, for instance -- who have helped solve problems or have something to say about the art as well.

Since my interest is fairly confined to B&W with what I'll call here a traditional, straight approach to the medium, and to classical art, it's obviously something of a narrow channel, within which my particular tastes are further limiting. I study classical painting and other plastic media as well, especially portraiture, and am always excited to find artists of whose work I was unaware or insufficiently familiar. I recently spent some time looking at Sebastiao Salgado's work, which I knew only cursorily. Wow! It helped rejuvenate my belief in the power of the single image, in the "photo journalistic" tradition, something much devalued by today's floods of instant digital content.

If you have other fora or sites you would recommend to me, I would be interested.

Books would be you best bet, if you are asking about how to develop and print B&W film. Internet is only good if you already know the answer to your question.
Attachment 204686

Years ago I learned an excellent method to find the correct developing time and EI for any film. I source was an article by William Mortensen. Mortensen wrote some excellent books and articles about basic sensitometry. The last time I did this test was when I abandoned Tri-X and switched to HP5+ due to cost about five years ago. I proceed as follows.

I set up my trays with my favorite developer HC110B (1:31), now Ilfotec HC (1:31). I pull out a sheet from the package in the dark. and then when the package is sealed again I turn on the room lights. This part of the test is done under the lights. I cut the sheet into five strips and mark them 1-5 by punching holes with a paper punch. Lets say the recommended time is 5:00. I want to see 3:00, 4:00, 5:00, 6:00 and 7:00, so I throw all the strips into the developer and agitate as usual until 3:00 when I move the No.1 strip over to the stop bath. Then I pull No.2 at 4:00, No.3 at 5:00, etc. I fix, wash and dry the strips as usual. What we are looking for is the best usable film DMax value. Obviously the film has been fully exposed! When strips dry lay down a page of news print on a table in good light. Find the strip through which the news print is barely visible. That's your developing time. Now to find the film speed.

Go outside in unchanging light conditions and expose five sheets and expose one at the manufacturers rating and then the other four at one half a stop and one stop less and one half a stop and one stop more. In the dark, develop them all together for your newly derived time. Contact print them together exposing and developing the paper for maximum usable paper DMax value through the film base plus fog negative rebate area. Pick out the best-looking contact print and you have your film speed.

Because my 7:00 negative looked the best on the first test, I did the test again with 7:00 as the central developing time and found that 8:00 was indeed too dense. This HP5+ time was the same as the as the developing time I had been using for Tri-X and film speed was also the same, EI400. I have also switched to Ilfotec HC developer due to cost and availability and find it to be a clone of HC110.

Many of the last generation of B&W gurus favored a development time of 5:00 for Tri-X and suggested an EI of 64-100. You can do the above test backwards, developing for 5:00 minutes and finding the film speed. I like 100. The difference between negatives exposed at 100 and developed for 5:00 and those exposed at 400 and developed for 7:00 is quite subtle. Both could be considered "normal" or N negatives. The 100 negative has slightly greater shadow and highlight detail that only a careful, knowledgeable viewer could detect. This slight improvement might not be worthwhile trading for two stops in the field. I do routinely rate HP5+ at 100 under powerful strobe light in the studio and it produces beautiful skin tones.

From here, if you are still with me, you can derive expansion and contraction schemes for both the 100 and 400 "normal negs". I do this by changing dilution rather than time. Make sure you have at least 1 oz. of the concentrated sauce for each 8X10 sheet or equivalent. For contractions I found that 3/4 oz. concentrate to 31 1/4 ozs. H20 yields an N-1 neg at a one stop loss in film speed and 1/2 oz. concentrate to 31 1/2 ozs. H20 yields an N-2 neg at a two stop loss in film speed. For expensions, 1 1/4 oz. of concentrate to 30 3/4 ozs. H20 yields an N+1 neg at a one stop gain in speed and 1 1/2 ozs. concentrate to 30 1/2 ozs. H20 produces an N+2 negative with a two stop gain in speed.

If you look at the chart of Tri-X film speed in Phil Davis' BTZS book you can easily pick out the film speed in HC110B 5:00 as EI 64.

Don't apply reciprosity exposure and development corrections for long exposures (1/2 sec. +) based on published data. Test for yourself and you may be surprised. I wasted a lot of time and effort producing long exposure negatives that were thick and flat. When I finally tested, I found no compensation was required for TXP or now HP5+ out to one minute.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ulophot

If you have other fora or sites you would recommend to me, I would be interested.

---

I suspect you know as much as anyone needs on the technical end.

One approach I recommend would be to make a project for yourself: Compile and share what you consider the finest b&w portraits ever made by anybody, any time. Make a limit, like the best ten or twenty.

This will really get you looking - not talking or writing, which are secondary at best.

Thank you, all.

Ken, as usual your insight is keen. I shall do so; I recognize and appreciate the discipline of the challenge. My restless search is more the fruit of frustration, that I am not free to invest the time and resources I wish into the art, than of believing that something besides doing more work is missing from my work. Taking one portrait a month (and I'm now far from even that) is not the path of progress; hence my recent still life images -- though nothing wrong with making it a challenge.

Onward. Thanks.

I have a free for the asking a Fred Picker video. It is from a DVD that was made from a VHS tape. Google cloud.