As I embarked on a late winter afternoon walk through the enchanting districts of San Polo and San Croce in Venice, I couldn't help but feel captivated by the city's timeless allure. Venice, often referred to as the "City of Canals," is a place where every corner tells a story, where history and beauty intertwine effortlessly.
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The deep sound of the fog horn hits my ears while I am driving across the Golden Gate Bridge. My mind is filled with excitement and I devoutly enjoy the fascinating view when the bridge appears from the fog that silently lays over the bay. With every mile I drive, I get further away from the bustling city towards the safe haven of the Point Reyes National Seashore at the roaring coastline of Marin County.
Read MoreIn the previous part of this installment we have discussed how we get a flat scan from black and white film in Silverfast 8.8. In the second part of this series we concentrate on the creative process of taking a flat and lifeless scan to a wonderful black & white master print. While we should normally never constrain our creative freedom, I still suggest we try to maintain a believable plausibility, which means we want to maintain the characteristic of the medium. A photograph should be identified as one and as we have already made the effort of shooting film, we want to maintain the beauty of this medium in the final master file. The easiest way of doing this is by replicating the tools a darkroom printer uses when creating a print. Of course we use these techniques digitally. Good care needs to be taken to avoid digital artifacts and a digital look. This is not as easy as it sounds, as digital tools can easily make their marks. We do our best to avoid these marks.
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Hasselblad 500cm - Ilford FP4 PLUS - developed by viertelvor8 lab in Berlin - 4 minutes exposure at f/8
Black and White printing has always been a mastery that requires many years of learning, knowledge and dedication. Nothing will ever compete with a carefully printed black and white print. However acquiring these skills, maintaining a darkroom and finding the time to print regularly exceeds the possibilities of most people. Digital made things easier, but still it can be regarded a mastery to skillfully make a digital master print file from an analog negative. This tutorial will show you in detail how to scan black and white medium format negatives and than process them in Adobe Lightroom like the old masters did it in the darkroom.
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Hasselblad 500cm - Kodak Portra 400 - Carmencita Film Lab
In the hunt for the best images we normally sort out all accidents and only keep the technically perfect images. Despite the slight blur, I liked the whole image so much, that I decided to keep this photograph.
I enjoy the mood, the location, the flying birds and the old sunken ship. I even enjoy the slight but lovely blur from an unsteady hand. This has become an iconic shot in the Point Reyes area. A different take...
Read MoreIn those days before GPS navigation and satellite communication vessels around the globe relied on the services of "Marconi Wireless Corporation
Read MoreKodak Portra 400 - Fuji Frontier Scan by Carmencita Film Lab (Spain)
A simple hardware solution that helps avoiding a phenomena called “scanner banding” or staircase effect that often occurs when using a flatbed scanner such as an Epson V700/V750 for negative scanning.
Scanning has always been a love and hate relationship for me. As traditional color darkroom printing was never a good option for me, I soon started to send my rolls of film to a good lab and have them scan my negatives. The results have always been wonderful and exceeded my expectations by far. Unfortunately this set my goals very high and I never achieved similar results using my personal scanner at home. Of course my V700 cannot be compared to a film scanner or a high class Flexlight, Fuji Frontier or Noritsu scanner. Nevertheless, I worked on my scanning workflow to come a little closer to the scans from my lab.
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The mouthwatering flavor of freshly baked “Foccacia” touches my nose while walking down Filbert Street, looking at the beautiful “Saints Peter & Paul” church. North Beach, San Francisco’s Little Italy, does everything to be enchanting and unobtrusive at once. The spirit of this place is present at every street corner. Well known for its culinary highlights, its small bars and restaurants and its pulsating nightlife, North Beach can be seen as a natural counterpart to the Piers of Fisherman’s Wharf and the busy streets of Chinatown.
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