Notes

I shoot street…..and this genre allows little time to ‘overly think’ or I should say to stop, adjust, think, adjust etc…. The scene changes too rapidly. But I do have to have my settings in place ahead of time so I can capture images quickly and exposed correctly..

Thus…..notes.

Now, I just viewed a photographer on You Tube from England who suggested to adjust settings ahead of time on his shots so the whites on his negatives are not over-exposed. Makes sense. To do that, he will take a spot reading on a dark area and from that point so as not to overexpose the whites, he will adjust from his spot metering and underexpose by two stops. So a F16 at 15 would now become F16 at 60. Then when he is developing the film, he will cut development time by 30%. So 12 minuets normally in the tank becomes 8 minutes. Again, all makes sense. In the ‘tank’….the first 4-5 minutes is all about shadows while the last portion of development is about the highlights. So by cutting developing time by 30% he is cutting back on the highlights. Between underexposing a dark area by two stops prior to taking the images and cutting 30% off tank exposure in post, he feels he gets it about right.

A second guy on You Tube told his audience to ‘overexpose’ (as opposed to underexpose) shots by a stop or two. Now, this contradicts what the first You Tuber stated but the first one is spot metering while the second one was either auto-program or shooting AP mode. By overexposing by a shot on program mode or AP, ….you are not going to far in exposure to lose your shadows as with film it is critical you don’t blacken your shadows and lose detail as one can always taper down your whites (opposite of digital). Then according to plan, I go into the developing process and increase (as opposed to decrease) the time by 30%. So a normal 12 minute development time now becomes 15 minutes.

Wow….complete opposites! …. So what do I do? First, I have to know my genre of shooting. I shoot street. I have little time to think too much. Second, since I do develop my film but only do ‘salt printing’ as opposed to normal printing or, I develop film and then scan prior to sending to printer, I have a. bit more control over my images by using a bit of software if needed. I usually only will add contrast in software or I can tone down blown out whites. Otherwise, nothing…..so no reason to think about the actual printing process and when I do print with salt printing, I can dodge and burn where needed.

My take? …continue to shoot as I do. Shoot with AP mode or Spot meter. Overexpose shots by one or two shots and then develop in the tank slightly more than usual as I want to have high contrast images This format allows most high content photos…. I think.

Redirection

The other day I went out with my Olympus OM2sp + 50mm F1.4 Zuiko and Fomapan 400….but prior to leaving I ‘redirected’ a few things. It helps to think, experiment….try things out and see what comes of it.

The first thing I did was to adjust how I might shoot….I purposely over-exposed by a few stops as I shot BW film. I did this to make sure that I didn’t lose the shadows and sometimes I feel my shadows get a bit lost, as in ‘faces’ etc…. Although I ‘spot meter’….and expose for a particular area, as opposed to center metering or having the entire image metered; by hitting my light exposure in the middle….just wasn’t what I wanted here.

The middle exposure setting is just that; the middle….and all told, and in theory it works…..and I could always lighten up in software after the fact; it was something I didn’t want to do. I wanted to get exposure ‘right’ the first time around. Thus, I overexposed on purpose but certainly not ‘blown out’.

The second thing I did was on the opposite end. The image was already taken and now I am in the dark room developing my film. My plan was to expose in the developer an extra 30%….so my regular 12 minutes with Fomapan turned into 15-16 minutes in the tank.

You see…the first half of development, or even the first 5 minutes is for the shadows and the second part is for the highlights. By keeping my negatives in the tank an extra 30%, my highlights will be that much whiter.

Then….when I get into my scanning process, I can expose with additional contrast; bringing in the shadows to make them deep where I want to,….OR…..I can just scan regularly and while in some software I can lasso different aspects and layer in additional contrast where I want. Either way, I think it worked. See the image below….. thoughts? Some might think I am ‘overexposed’ in the face…but. to me, this was the look I was going for. Highlighted and not dark and certainly not perfect.