More of Adrian

Here are the last two 4x5 pix of Adrian. I still need to process some 120 film.

Overall, I'm happy that I nailed the focus. Adrian is a very good model. She's able to hold the pose long enough for me to do all the stuff associated with shooting a single frame of 4x5 film and not shift out of the plane of focus. So it's nice to have her expertise on board.

I love the window light in our guest bedroom. This is the first time I've had a chance to really shoot in there with that lighting. I'm quite pleased with that. The digital images in there were superb.

So I was also happy I was able to clean these negs. That was some pretty gunky stuff that accumulated on the film.

You'll notice the nude of Adrian on the bed is cropped tightly. I don't normally like to crop my 4x5 images, but this one begged for it and I sort of screwed up the original framing anyway.

Another of Adrian

So I've now tried cleaning this set of negs with the old faithful (but deadly) film cleaner (gasp). I got this one somewhat cleaner than the previous image of Adrian, but there is still a fair amount of streaking. I've done a little Photoshop to soften the streaks and clean up the neg as best I can.

You will notice around her lower back that I'm battling the dreaded Newton Rings phenomena that occurs when your negative does not lay flat on the scanner.

Finding our way back

OK. So after a long, long hiatus. I've returned to the fold and have brought you Adrian, plus just one more way to screw up some really good film.

Maybe drinking decaf isn't such a good thing for me early in the morning.

I "developed" this film only to pour out the TMax solution and see the telltale signs of the cosmetic dye leaching out of what I was pouring out. Because Kodak brilliantly added this dye, I figured out I had only processed my film in a water bath and not the actual developer solution. The dye does not show up when you pour out the developer solution.

So the film got a good 12-minute bath. Then it got processed again.

I think this contributed to the streaking and general sloppiness of the negatives.

In this picture you can't see the streaking so much because I softened the details and there are a lot of shadows in this particular image. In some of the ones to follow, you'll see some seriously bad streaking.