B&W Wednesday: Proof is in the Print

I never realized how involved the whole process of making film prints is. Each week I've focused on trying to get one image printed decently. Last week I worked on an image that I took with an old Ansco Panda that I picked up at the flea market.

It's really nothing more than a plastic child's box camera from the 1950s. It has a TLR-style lens, and images are composed at waist level by looking down into the viewer. Of course, everything you view is in the reverse which makes composing quite interesting. In it I used some 620 film from the 1940s that I purchased on eBay.

So, my night's printing process ended up something like this:

10 seconds, straight print

Too flat looking, not enough contrast.

14 seconds with a #3 contrast filter added

A bit better, but still too flat.

20 seconds with a #4 contrast filter

Now we're getting somewhere, but almost too contrasty. Also, due to the age of the film, there are a lot of specs on the negative which really showed up in this print. The light leak along the bottom of the image is more evident as well.

21 seconds with #4 contrast filter. Additional 6-second burn to sky.

I wanted to fill in some of the sky by giving it a bit of extra time while trying to keep the building from getting too dark. Now the branches on the left no longer have the definition that was there from the previous print.

20 seconds with #4 contrast filter, and 3-second burn to sky.

My final print of the night, and I'm mostly happy with it. The branches still lack definition, but I think the blocks on the water tower show good contrast and definition.

And the crazy thing is that you pretty much have to go through this process with every single image you want to print. I suppose if you have a series of images that are taken similarly, you could use the image you were happy with as a starting point for the next images to be printed. Kinda tedious, but still interesting. This is why I'm lucky if I can get one decent print for the night.