post your urban landscapes

[Peter Lewin]

Two images from Liberty State Park this past week, trying to avoid the obvious views of the NY skyline and the Freedom Tower that everyone takes. These are straight negative scans (Epson 4990) since they will ultimately become 11x14 silver prints, and I can't scan the prints. But the negative scans at least show what I captured. Both HP5+ and PMK:

freedomtower3 by Pete Lewin, on Flickr

This second image is from the 9/11 Memorial, a beautiful stainless steel structure engraved with the names of the victims:

freedomtower2 by Pete Lewin, on Flickr

[jcoldslabs]

Nice one, Peter.

Jonathan

[StoneNYC]

Two images from Liberty State Park this past week, trying to avoid the obvious views of the NY skyline and the Freedom Tower that everyone takes. These are straight negative scans (Epson 4990) since they will ultimately become 11x14 silver prints, and I can't scan the prints. But the negative scans at least show what I captured. Both HP5+ and PMK:

freedomtower3 by Pete Lewin, on Flickr

This second image is from the 9/11 Memorial, a beautiful stainless steel structure engraved with the names of the victims:

freedomtower2 by Pete Lewin, on Flickr

Damn I wish I hadn't seen these, I was thinking of something similar... But haven't been in NY since they completed the tower.

[Corran]

Peter, that's some of the nicest tonality I've ever seen. And dang, HP5 to boot - a film I've trashed before and never liked. It has the old-world look of the high-silver-content films.

Is it just me though or is the open sky in the first one a bit mottled? Mind giving a bit of detail about your PMK usage?

[Peter Lewin]

Is it just me though or is the open sky in the first one a bit mottled? Mind giving a bit of detail about your PMK usage?

Unfortunately it isn't you, the sky is mottled. It was painfully obvious in the more standard skyline shots with a lot of open sky (which I intentionally did not post), and I'm not sure why it happened. It bothered me enough that I am going back this coming week to re-shoot and redevelop. I haven't noticed the problem before, so it is either more obvious because I have more open sky than usual, or something went wrong with this batch of negatives.

I tray develop, usually 4 to 6 sheets at a time, standard PMK dilution of 10cc "A," 20cc "B" to make 1 liter of working solution. My only "oddity" is that to avoid shuffling the negatives for too long, with the associated increase in the chance for scratches, I develop at 75F for a nominal 11:42 using a ZoneVI compensating development timer. (So in general terms, I develop for the time equivalent to 11:42 at 68F. But since the ZoneVI compensation curves are based, IIRC, on Tri-X and HC-110, I had to experiment with the time a bit, which is how I ended up with 11:42 for HP5+ and PMK. Since the timer does the compensation I don't know the actual "tray time" but I guesstimate it is in the 7-8 minute range.) I use 8x10 trays for pre-soak, stop, and fix, but for developer I use a 5x8 (roughly) food storage container, as recommended by Ken Lee on his site. Since the container has less surface area than an 8x10 tray, the liter of developer is deeper, better for shuffling without scratching. But I may try a tray again, if the agitation pattern is causing the problem. (I've been developing like this for years without noticing the mottling, I'm just trying to think of all the possible culprits.)

With this batch I was using fixer at the end of its useful life (I know, false economy!) which may have caused the problem? The fixer wasn't exhausted in terms of square inches (I keep track of that) but it had been sitting around for too long. I should have mixed up a new batch, but was lazy.

So next time I will revert to the old safe approach of exposing two negatives for each image, and only developing the "even" negatives for one run to see if the mottling was a one-time event (I sure hope so!).

[AlexGard]

This was the first photo I took through the 8x10.
8x10, 360mm, slight crop
Foma 200, Red 25A
R09 1:50 10 mins



Sheffield, Tasmania by Alex Gard, on Flickr

[Corran]

Peter, Thanks for the detailed information. I have had mixed results with various pyro developers but others get very good results! I have a few rolls of HP5+ 120, might be time to reconsider that film .

[David Schaller]

Peter, those are great images, as usual. I switched from PMK to Pyrocat because I kept getting mottled skies from PMK, and I don't with Pyrocat.
Thanks for posting.
Dave

[Ari]

Two images from Liberty State Park this past week, trying to avoid the obvious views of the NY skyline and the Freedom Tower that everyone takes. These are straight negative scans (Epson 4990) since they will ultimately become 11x14 silver prints, and I can't scan the prints. But the negative scans at least show what I captured. Both HP5+ and PMK:

freedomtower3 by Pete Lewin, on Flickr

This second image is from the 9/11 Memorial, a beautiful stainless steel structure engraved with the names of the victims:

freedomtower2 by Pete Lewin, on Flickr

Beautiful tonality in both photos, Peter; I love the way these look.

[Alessandro Bocchi]

London - England - Millennium Bridge and St. Paul Cathedral

- Camera: CHAMONIX 45-N2
- Lens: SCHNEIDER Symmar 135 1:5.6 Convertible
- Filter: N/A
- Exposure: 1/60 second at f 22
- Film: ILFORD FP4 - 125 ASA - size 4x5"
- Developer: KODAK HC-110 - Dilution H (1+63) - 8 minutes at 23° C
- Stop: ILFORD ILFO STOP
- Fixer: ILFORD RAPID FIXER
- Lightmeter: Gossen Lunasix 3 reading the incident light
- Lightning: Ambient light only

- Scanner: EPSON V700 and EPSON Scan 3.81
- Software: Adobe Photoshop CS4