I stuck to my goal of visiting the darkroom at Glen Echo’s Photoworks again to make more prints, and wanted to share out the 11 prints I made over the course of three hours.

Overall I’m still re-learning the print-making process and, with one exception, I was working from the roll of film that I shot at the beginning of the month. For a couple of reasons I think that’s a useful place to start. The images are still recent enough that I remember taking them and I can form some opinions about how the work was captured in camera and might be improved upon. In some cases it reinforces upon me the importance of composing all aspects of the the shot I want in the camera.

Also, I have an overarching goal of having some synergy between various Smiling Savage projects, so developing a workflow from camera to print is helpful.

My goals for the next darkroom visit include developing the roll of ISO 3200 T-max that I’m currently shooting, and to try out the digital darkroom equipment to see how I like the results of scanning from negatives. I love print making, but would also like to use some images in other creative ways down the road. And, I’m seeing that I should have the time at the end of a print-making session as there’s a non-trivial amount of time involved in the drying process.

As usual, I’ll put reserve some of the prints after the paywall for paid subscribers.

I like the moodiness of this print, and the foreground blur came out exactly as I’d hoped it would.

This is another shot where I was hoping to shift the bokeh to the front of the image.

Here’s one of the classic Macintoshes that is featured in other Smiling Savage articles.

Here’s a close-up of one of the lanterns from the first shot. I really do love the bokeh one can get from the 1.4 50mm lens

Here’s the e-bike featured in another Smiling Savage article

Here’s a case where I wished for faster film than the Tri-X 400 I was shooting. This charcuterie plate is more blurred than I would have liked because the focus range was so narrow with the lens wide open.

This is the one print I made from my library of negatives. This is from one of the abandoned farmhouses I visited in Iowa. I’m really happy with how this came out and I look forward to printing more of my old favorites.

Smiling Savage

Latest prints from the darkroom

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