Unit 13: FMP

I looked up a lot of local photographers; I emailed quite a few asking if they had any experience with developing film and if they would be happy for me to interview them. After a lot of no's Dan Freeman got back to me saying he was happy to do an interview. He began by saying that he learned photography by shooting on film before digital had been properly released publicly and that he shoots on film for all his daytime imagery now. This instantly showed me that he was a very good person to talk to. 

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The first question I asked him was "Did you develop black and white photos and or color?" He said "I used to develop black and white imagery almost daily for a couple of years. I did not develop color film as it was more costly and technical to do. the process is different in part for color, and so that was not something I did." I am glad he said that he didn't develop color because it was more costly and technical, as when I was researching developing color it did seem quite complex.

Secondly, I asked, "Did you add any other chemicals to the film, such as a wetting agent?" He said "frequently I would use wetting agent to clean the negatives if they had dried with runs form the processing stages. I would not always add this until I had a chance to look at the film after it had dried the first time around. Other than that I avoided chemicals unless I was attempting a funky effect in the darkroom. In that case, it would be chemicals that would react with the papers to warp the look of the image. I set fire to the paper a little once before printing on it, but I would not recommend trying this!" This is interesting how he said that he added wetting agent until he had checked to see if the negatives had runs on them, each tutorial I had seen online the wetting agent was added while the negatives were wet. Maybe I will try this too. Also, he says he avoids other chemicals, I don't think the college has any other chemicals but it has been suggested to me to add ink to the developer to tint the images. 

After this, I asked "Any other information about what you did with film?" He said "It is worth noting that a lot of modern Photoshop tools and techniques come from older darkroom practices. Dodge and Burn for example are techniques used to impact shadows/highlight/midtones in chosen and specific areas of a print. I used to do what is known as negative sandwiching, where you place two negatives in the holder of the enlarger at the same time, so you effectively get two totally different images in one print. the Photoshop equivalent is 'layering'. Occasionally I would lay objects on the paper during an exposure to add an abstract effect to the image, changing the entire visual makeup of the image. The darkroom is a magical place, there is no end to the experimentation you can do!" I was inspired when he talked about negative sandwiching, I think this is a clever idea and would really add value to the book. His point about the Photoshop techniques was shown to me the other day with the manual self-timer dial on the old Pentax camera. I may also try adding objects on top of the photo paper as I develop a negative as this may look good. 

As this whole developing images process can be very tedious and testing I asked him if he had any tips, this question would mean he could tell me anything he thought I should know. His first tip was "take your time - nothing in the darkroom happens quickly except mistakes! patience and determination are key!" I have found this already from my afternoon in the darkroom when things would go wrong and we would have to go back and redo an exposure, for example when we were using already exposed paper.

Another tip of his was to "practice your exposures on small strips of paper - rip up sheets of photographic paper for testing samples before committing to the final prints. this will save you a lot of paper/money long term," I hadn't actually seen anyone online do this it was suggested by my teacher to do this. I will get a sheet of photography paper and cover up sections and then expose the paper for different amounts of time and this will allow me to be able to judge which is the best amount of time to leave the enlarger on for. 

His next tip is "experiment - the opportunities are endless!". I will definitely be experimenting I will be trying several of the things mentioned in this interview including the negative sandwiching and also putting the objects on top of the photos to create effect. 

Next, he said "protect your paper - if that paper is exposed to light, its useless and you might as well bin it. work out a strategy to keep it protected between exposures. this includes not using your phone around the paper, as this will fog the paper if light hits it." We keep the photo paper in a bag which we only open when the lights are off, only the red lights on. We had some issues with some exposed paper when we were doing the test of the enlarger earlier in the week. The other issue we had was with our Fitbits lighting up and ruining the photo paper. 

After that, he said "workflow - find a method that works for you and stick to it. be methodical in your whole process, from developing the film, protecting the negs, framing the paper on the enlarger tray, developing the print. once you have the workflow sussed you will eliminate chances of mistakes." Next week we are going to try developing the negatives so we will come up with a workflow then which will mean when we develop the photos for the final product we should have no issues. 

Then he said "give the prints proper attention - once the prints go in the chemicals, I would always aggravate them in the trays whilst they are in the developer and stop. By constantly watching the first two parts of the process, you can be in total control of when you think the image is exposed enough." I will definitely be following this step as I don't want the photos to be left too long in the developer as the photos will go grey and we want them to be as black as possible.