Time to switch things up. I’ve been doing a lot of driving and landscapes. I needed to change some things up. Socialization has been tough these past two years. Why not go to a BLM party, and did I have fun? I haven’t seen a lot of people since COVID began, so it was quite refreshing to see some old (and new) faces.
I sent this off to get printed, and it looked amazing when I got the print back. That was the first time I saw my pictures as prints (albeit a print from a digital scan). I don’t have any equipment or means to photographically (or electronically for that matter) print.
A lot of pictures had flash blowout where closer areas are much brighter than they should be. I tamed this down by adjusting exposure in Photoshop and creating either linear or circular gradients to blend the adjustment.
This one was one where the blow out was so bad, you couldn’t see any details on the her face. To correct this I added an adjustment layer and mask and used a circular gradient to define where I wanted to tone down the brightness. A fortunate byproduct of this is the floor and areas immediately around the face are much darker. I like this aesthetic, as it draws attention to the face.
All of the things I do in Photoshop would have a direct analog to photographic prints. If I were to do that same adjustment in the dark room, I would probably cut a burning mask and expose the middle of the picture longer than the rest, moving the mask for a smooth transition.
These pictures are from the same roll as the previous post. They also seem to have similar graininess, but the indoor scenes lend themselves better to that look and feel. I’m not sure what it is, but I’m not distracted by it like I was with the outdoor pictures.
Even though a lot of adjusting was done, these came out pretty well.
Still not done with the roll, so I threw in a picture of Sam for good measure. Happy Dog!
Development Details
- Film: Kodak TMax 400
- Camera ISO setting: 400
- Developer: Rodinal
- Developer Dilution: 1:100
- Development Time: 1 hour
- Development Agitation: Stand (20 inversions first minute only)