Soooo. I think this is going to be a project that’s ongoing for some time. It took some time to get the equipment I needed but, even now, I think it might be changing as time goes on. I had already purchased the Intrepid 8x10 and some other bits to start doing Tin Types. I actually made some good progress and started to get some good results but quickly realised, it was just too much for me to do at that time. With the chemicals and space needed, I decided to put it on the back burner.
When I was browsing the internet I came across Harmen Direct Positive Paper and became interested in what kind of results people were getting, the set up was similar to what I already had, I just didn’t need so many harmful chemicals sitting around. I already had a lot of the equipment, except a large format lens, to which I acquired by trading in some medium format gear. The lens I had for Tin Types didn’t have a shutter, which I would definitely need for some consistency.
Direct positive paper is what I consider, a print straight out of camera. Once it’s exposed, a quick develop, stop and fix and there it is, a positive black and white image on a nice fibre based glossy piece of paper. The only problem is… it’s very slow with an ISO of like… 2, maybe even 1 and it’s very contrasty, the blacks are black and whites are white. I had seen a lot of varying results online, some were honestly quite terrible and others were seriously impressive. I’m hoping to go down the more impressive route, my first 3 exposures are telling me otherwise though, there under exposed and a smidge out of focus. The one below is just a photo taken on my phone, it’s the best out of the 3 and does look much better in person!
I wanted this to be a project on people who have and interesting story, or in there environment, be that at work, at home or somewhere they just love, kind of environmental portraits but with some context, if that makes sense. Maybe a close up more intimate portrait if it’s the telling of a story and something more wide and open if it’s more of an environmental portrait.
After my first 3 exposures I quickly realised I’m going to have a problem with the wider environmental portraits. Even on a bright sunny day here down under, the light was only just enough to achieve F5.6 at 1/20th. This is most definitely not fast enough for any portraits I was hoping to take inside and, honestly, there is no amount of flash or continuous lighting that will make it doable for some of the larger/wider scenes I had in mind.
I’m thinking I might have to move to Black and White film for this endeavour. I’ll only need a film holder to replace my plate holder and a scanner to do so. My only problem then, is that once it’s digitised, eventually, it has to be printed adding another cost.
The box of 25 sheets that I have purchased will very much be used to hone in my skill and practice/experiment. The next few I do ill be rating at ISO1 rather that ISO3 and see how they turn out. I’ll keep this blog updated with my progress.
