Monday, November 05, 2012

Pushing to 6400

Fuji GA645, f/8, 1/125, 
top: Ilford Delta 3200 pushed 1 stop
bottom: Kodak Tri-X 400 pushed 4 stops
Fuji GA645, f/11, 1/60
top: Ilford Delta 3200 pushed 1 stop
bottom: Kodak Tri-X 400 pushed 4 stops
Fuji GA645, f/11, 1/60
top: Ilford Delta 3200 pushed 1 stop
bottom: Kodak Tri-X 400 pushed 4 stops
Fuji GA645, f/11, 1/60
top: Ilford Delta 3200 pushed 1 stop
bottom: Kodak Tri-X 400 pushed 4 stops

i am starting on a new personal project where i am photographing hand press books on film. hand-made papers, hand-set type, hand-done binding, the beautiful craftsmanship of a period before mechanization, all recorded using traditional dark room methods with the goal of producing a suite of silver gelatin prints on fiber paper. this is related to another ongoing personal project called Layers that is about representing multiple stages/phases of a person, place or thing in a single image, but whereas the Layers project incorporates a variety of media and formats, i want this new series to be highly focused because the media itself is so integral to the purpose of the project.

this new project is still in the gestation phase (i don't even have a title for it yet), but i wanted to share a few images from one of my early experiments in searching for the right fit. in this test, i took the same shots using Ilford 3200 pushed 1 stop and Kodak Tri-X pushed 4 stops. despite being underexposed (still working out metering these things), i prefer the look of Tri-X pushed to 6400 (bottom above) for this project, but welcome your opinions.

2 comments:

  1. The tri x is moodier and may suit this subject matter, i can definately see that but I like the detail in blacks more with Ilford. Great post Yuri!

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    1. Thanks Toni! you make a good point, and i'm definitley going to have to be careful about the exposures. Joey said these were all about a stop and a half under so hopefully if i expose properly i can ge both the moodiness and the detail. i think it's going to take several rounds of tests before i really start working this project. luckily i have access to some pretty cool stuff so i can get everything sorted before i start visiting other institutions and asking to photograph their treasures, but so far the people i've mentioned it to have been open to the idea - so nice to be "in" with the librarians.

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