Carbon Transfer Workshop, Oct. 20 - 23, 2021, Yosemite Valley

[Don12x20x]

Yes. The union representing the workers in the Valley fought against any vaccination requirements, so most of the services are minimal in the Valley (pay full price for a room at the lodges, but no maid service, no sit-down food service, etc.

I was pushing to get the workshop going -- figuring out ways to feed everyone, etc.

We'll see about the 2022 workshops -- depends some on selfish idiots who are afraid of vaccinations.

I'm fully vaxxed, as were all of my students at the Photographers Formulary in this past July. Sorry to hear yours got cancelled as it was an opportunity to learn from a master how to print using in-camera negatives.

I had some absolutely outstanding students that mastered digital negatives from the ground up (selecting inks, linearization and fine tuning), glop making/tissue making, sensitizing/mating/developing and finishing prints as well as how to properly size art paper. Students had access to the facilities for 24 hours a day over 5.5 days and most were working late into the evenings.

The facilities are outstanding (we used all three huge darkrooms - one for exposing/making/pouring glop, one for drying sensitized tissue and poured tissues in the dark, and one for sensitizing and developing. It has a full classroom, a break area and a dining room where Lynn and her crew prepared fabulous meals. On site housing just a short stroll out back, and a fully stocked warehouse of everything alt-process to buy and bring home. All the students came away with several beautiful prints from their negatives. I was impressed with their dedication to learning.

L-R owners Bud/Lyn, Nikos, Joel,Dan,Doug, Don

Sadly no one came with in-camera negatives but we could have done those too (just a matter of matching the sensitizer amount to the negative. I love printing my 7x17 and 12x20 negatives but with film costs these days (gee I remember when a box of 12x20 TriX was only $47.....). I usually use medum format digital - GFX100 and Arca Swiss Rm3di/Hasselblad907x back.

Lets hope next year is better. There is nothing like Yosemite in the fall for making some images (non waterfall of course)!
Don Nelson

[Vaughn]

The visitor support facilities were the major concerns. Your teaching situation is perfect -- sort of how I ran the darkroom for the university. Eighty hours of open darkroom a week, not including the after midnight hours. And PF has the luxury of being self-contained and not Park restrained!

Next one is scheduled for April 2022 -- an incredible time to be in the Valley...sun, dogwoods, snow, rain, frazil ice, falls booming, and all during the workshop.

[sanking]

Vaughn,

Sorry to hear about the cancellation of your carbon transfer workshop at Yosemite. Hope you have better luck next year.

And Don, thanks for your report of the carbon workshop at the Photographers Formulary. Great to hear that all went well. Conditions there are outstanding and I greatly enjoyed teaching there.

I too am mostly working with digital capture but have a rather large archive of film in LF (primarily 5X7) and ULF formats (11X14, 7X17, 12X20, and some 20X24) that I have been digitizing for the past 1.5 years. Gift of the pandemic, I guess. But the great sensors in the current generation of digital cameras have made this work much easier and faster than digitizing with scanners, and in most cases with better image quality in many respects.

Sandy

[Don12x20x]

Sandy
It went very well - I had one cancellation Thursday just before class started. After discussions with Lynn, I decided to teach anyway (below minimum number) as I had one student who was on a two-week cross-country trip from Virginia. I am glad I did - this group of students nailed the creation of the QTR quad files from scratch (starting with exposure and then a color ink test for blocking).
One interesting observation -- the tube-UV printers (and NuARC) both had PK as the best blocking ink, but a student brought their own LED UV box. That clearly had Y as the best ink UV blocker. It was quite a surprise (this with P800 inks). His LEDs were 395nm but he did not know the source (had not brought that information) and it was much slower. At my suggestion, he added strips of 365nm LED alternating with existing 395nm, and the times were cut to just 30%. He's currently testing the inks to see if it differs from previous blocking tests.
Don

[Drew Wiley]

Rats. I was hoping to at least swing by, say hello, and briefly look at some work en route over the top before the Pass closes for winter. Yosemite Park is a Federal holding, where certain indoor health mandates are not currently negotiable. How does any private union get around that? Reminds me of the ole "Curry National Park" days. But I know that particular hill country demographic very very well. Came from there. So I'm certainly not surprised at their attitude. Reverse psychology should have been applied instead : just officially ban shots and masks, and they'll all rebel and line up to get them.

[Jim Fitzgerald]

I was looking forward to teaching again with Vaughn in the park. I still have a reservation as I have a cabin in the park reserved for a couple of days. I'll spend a day on my black oak project images and a day with my wife enjoying the park. We bring our own food most of the time so we are good. I just hope we can do April. We love taking the students out in the park and letting them use our 8x10 cameras, or their own LF cameras and then developing the negatives and printing from them. It is an amazing place to conduct a workshop

[Renato Tonelli]

Too bad about the last-minute cancellation. I wanted to attend the workshop but car rentals have been a problem to secure. I hope to attend it in April.

I attended the Platinum/Palladium workshop with Tillman Crane at the Photographers Formulary in Montana; great facility, nice people. The attendees were offered shuttle service to and from the airport, which was used by most of the attendees. Had the Carbon workshop been offered right after it, I would have stayed on for it.
We had a small group (there was one no-show) and we all enjoyed the workshop very much. Tillman was superb - knowledgeable, a talent for teaching and all in good humor. I was the only one with camera negatives and had a chance to print from both camera and digital negatives of the same image.

[Barry Ling]

Too informative and helpful, thank you

[Jim Fitzgerald]

So far April 20-23, 2022 is on. We will start a new post the closer we get to the date next year with updates.

[archphotofisher]

thanks, Jim for the information,
Gregory