Moving the Blog to my personal Web

In an efford to consolidate the Post into a single place; I will not longer post here.
Please visit my personal web page for future Post

www.d25studios.com

Thanks

The Kallitype Process

Ever since I started Photography I want it to do alternative process printing. I was fascinated with the Platinum Palladium look, the way that the image is inside the paper and not on the surface.
Now that I have my own Darkroom, capable of doing 20x24 prints, I decided that it was time to dive into the alternative process.
Because Platinum Palladium is very expensive, I went with the Kallitype process, more economical, but still in the same family.
I must say that I'm very impress with the results, the tonal range is amazing and the shadows are very rich.
Here are some quick images showing the process.

Century Studio Camera No. 7

It wasn't on my plans to acquire this camera, but a Facebook post from an Antique shop in Oklahoma, announcing that it was selling one for a really good price, made me change my mind.

I drove five hours to the Antique shop to pick it up and I could not be happier

The camera is in great shape, and with a very little restoration I should be able to make look like new.

My plan is to use this camera for Wet plate Studio work in the future, but for now, it just look great in my living room.

Toyo 45A 4x5 Field Camera

I had this camera for a while, but I haven't used much since I was focusing on my Hasselblad medium format camera.
Last weekend I decided to give it a try, I went to a small park close from where I live. This park have some beautiful dead trees full of holes from the termites. The day was very cold, overcast and wet from an early rain, perfect for B&W Photography.
I took some expired (2000) Ilford FP4 and some fresh Kodak T-max 100. I took six photographs from two different trees.
I exposed the Ilford FP4 at ISO 64  and later over developed at 125, this helped me over compensate the age of the film.
To my surprise, I compared the t-max and Ilford Fp4 negatives from the same photo and the Ilford hold up very good.

Here are some images from the process.

Working on a series of photos from Deep Ellum.
A small batch will be created on 11x14 RC Ilford paper and 16x20 FB paper

Darkroom update

Here are some more pictures of the build.
It's almost done, now I'm starting to move and organize all the tools and supplies.

Darkroom Build

After a lot of planning and dreaming, I decided to get out of the laundry room and build a permanent Darkroom.
I know that is very hard and require to invest a lot of money to build the perfect Darkroom. I decided that I was going to build mine thinking on the future (Platinum/Palladium ) printing.
My budget was very limited, so during a year time, I patiently searched for all Darkroom equipment including cabinets, on craigslist and eBay.
The place where I spend the most money was in safety, I build a top of the line ventilation system that will allow me print and mix Platinum/Palladium in the future.
Thanks to all the wonderful post and help from the community I started my build.

DarkRoom data:

-Horseshoe arrangement with wet side on the left, wet/Jobo in the middle and dry side on the right.

-96x36 sink that supports 20x24

-Two exhaust ventilation 48 and 24 wide located at the belie level so it will never rise to your nose. Powered by an exterior exhaust fan with filter.


Here are some images from the beginning to the current progress.