From Bostick and Sullivan / Member, Freestyle Advisory Board of Photographic Professionals

The whole modern electronic world is basically an abstraction. I came out of that world. My first computer had 90K of memory and cost about 4 million dollars. It was called an IBM 360-30. I am not going to digital bash; I just want to put it in perspective.

Walter Chapell wrote an essay in 1948 where he defined photography as being in two generalized worlds: image making and print making. Cartier Bresson = Image maker, Ansel Adams = print maker. Of course not always easy to define but the idea is interesting.

Many practical classes have disappeared from high school campuses. I am 66 and when I was in Jr. High in Shop Class we did hot metal sand casting! 9th graders were allowed to use the table saw in woodshop! Imagine a Jr. High today with students pouring hot metal out of a furnace and ripping boards on a table saw! It is possible today, not only to graduate functionally illiterate to the point that one could not drill a hole and use a screwdriver to mount a pencil sharpener on the wall.

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Since the shift to digital I suppose a fair amount of people out there have never used film, let alone been in the darkroom. I must admit that I was semi-inspired to write this by Brian’s post about older SLR cameras. Regardless, here’s the run down.

Film and Processing

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred I shoot with Kodak Tri-X 400 film, rated at ISO 320 to give the negs a little more punch. Tri-X is quite possibly the best black and white film ever made. It has an amazing amount of detail even when printing 20 x 24 inches and larger, as well as a great deal of exposure latitude, which is good since I’m quite lazy with the light meter and tend to just guess. Tri-X can even be pushed as far as ISO 1600 with Acufine developer and the grain will hold up remarkably well. I normally develop with Ilford Ilfosol developer, which has a bit more acutance than Kodak’s standard D-76 developer, keeping the grain nice and sharp.

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Having just finished putting together a darkroom, I thought it was time to update the black and white photographs offered in the fine art prints gallery.

It has been many, many years since I have printed my own work. In fact, an overwhelming majority of my work has never been printed at all, except for a few digital proofs here and there, and one or two chemical prints made by a local lab.

Because of this, I am starting at the beginning, working my way forward chronologically through all my negatives. New images will be posted periodically as they are printed, most likely about once a week. Keep an eye on the print gallery for new additions.

A few notes on process; I am printing on an Omega D2 enlarger, modified to use a Zone VI cold light head. Paper of choice is Seagull-Oriental double weight fiber base using Ilford Cooltone developer.

First print from the new darkroom.
I can’t even begin to express how thrilled I am to be printing again.

More to come…