Digging Jezebel's Grave

Long exposure made as I dug the grave for my 17-year old cat Jezebel in my back yard (Jan. 2009)

 

NOTE: This was scanned and adjusted on a PC...so will likely look washed out on an Apple. (If you have an Apple, just look up at your screen from an angle to darken it until the plants on the left side are almost black....heh! My secret method.)

 

Technical details:

 

Making the exposure (Jan., 2009):

 

- Ilford FP4+, 5x7 format (expired Nov., 2007, stored room temperature)

- Kodak No. 2 view camera (c. teens)

- Schneider 121mm f/8 barrel lens in Sinar DBM mount (taped onto front standard)

- Bogen 3051 tripod with 3047 head

- Brockway Norwood Director incident light meter (basically an early version of the Sekonic Studio Deluxe)

- Metered for foreground, facing roughly toward camera, away from background sky

- Film rated at EI 32

- 25 minutes at f/64

- 3 stops of ND for an effective f/180

- That means I made the exposure for an EV 6.0 mid tone (factoring in the two-full-speed dowrating I gave the film to help combat the expected reciprocity failure)

- Exposure made after sunset as twilight fell

 

Processing the film (Dec., 2009):

 

- Agfa Rodinal 1:250, 502 mL of solution (500 water and 2 Rodinal concentrate), 8x10 tray

- 1 hour development, constant for first minute, then 30 seconds of every ten minutes

- 19 C starting temperature

- water stop

- Ilford Rapid Fixer 1:4, 5 minutes

- 20 minutes washing in tray with slow stream of water from faucet

- Photo Flo 200 at 1:200, 15 sec.

 

Making the print (Dec., 2009):

 

- contact print on Agfa Portriga Rapid PRW 113 (grade 2 matte)

- Photographer's Formulary 20x24 contact printing frame (used one corner)

- Omega B22XL enlarger

- 50mm lens

- lens to baseboard distance, approx 60 cm

- 15 sec @ f/4

- Arista powdered A+B chemistry, 2 L total developer volume, consisting of 1 L almost totally dead (2+ years old) old brown, 400 mL part A, 400 mL part B, water to make 2 L.

- Total dilution: 2 parts A, 2 parts B, 1 part water, 5 parts nearly dead old brown.

- counting the old brown as plain water, it makes the ratio 1 part A, 1 part B, 3 parts water

- approx 8 minutes development

- cold temperatures (for So. Cal.) - Approx. 15 C

- two-bath fixing, first fixer bath used in place of stop bath, 3 minutes each bath

- Ilford Rapid fixer 1:9, two trays of 500 mL working solution each

- first fixer poured out for recycling at end of session

- approx 20 5x7 sheets passed through first fixer bath (half of its stated capacity for fiber paper)

- second fixer bath saved to use as first fixer bath next session

- all prints soaked in holding tank for entirely of session (about 6 hours)

- 1 hour, 30 minute wash in rotating "cage" print washer, all 20 prints at once

 

In retrospect/lessons learned:

 

- Since making the exposure, I have done some research, and found an Ilford-published formula to use for long exposures with Ilford FP4 and HP5. The formula is to take the indicated exposure, in seconds, and raise it to the power of 1.48. (I am not sure if it applies to Pan F as well, but I am guessing that it does not apply to the Delta films, as they usually have much better reciprocity maintenance during long exposure than random-grained films.)

 

- The above formula means that to get my desired 25-minute exposure time, I should have aimed for an indicated exposure of only 140 seconds. If I had taken the shot with the lens at f/64, I would have been overexposing this by 2/3 stop: NOT a big deal at all, and not even undesirable in this sort of situation.

 

- Instead, I used an exposure of 25 minutes (1,500 seconds) at f/180, rating my film at EI 32 to help combat reciprocity failure. How accurately did this idea work in this case? Putting this form of "shotgun" compensation ("rerating") aside, and using the film's actual speed (ISO 125), my indicated exposure was thus equivalent to 325 seconds at f/180. Using Ilford's formula, this calls for an approximately 90 minute exposure (5,219 seconds, to be exact). Using the two-stop downrating method, I ended up giving the film only 1,500 seconds of exposure. 1,500 is only 29 percent of 5,219. Thus, my half-assed downrating method gave me less than 1/3 of the exposure time needed. What does this mean? Because of the exponential nature of reciprocity failure, it means only one very specific thing: When using Ilford FP4 or HP5, if you have an indicated exposure of about six minutes at box speed, give your film 87 minutes instead. Shoot! All I needed to do to know that was to use the Ilford formula!!! To show how smart I am, I am going to make a chart for all the indicated times I am likely to encounter, in third-step increments, and carry it with me.

 

- I exposed the negative knowing that I would be stand developing it, and this was the right choice. It pulled whatever could be pulled out of the underexposed foreground, and restrained the sky in the background enough that it is workable, and did not bleed into the tree branches or anywhere else in the picture.

 

- Still, I might have gone longer with the stand development (perhaps 2 hours), and gone to 15 minute agitation intervals instead of 10, to try to dig more density, "micro contrast", and acutance out of the foreground, and maybe some more pronounced "edge effects" where the tree branches intersect with the sky.

 

- If I had had a duplicate negative, I would have loved to have tried it in a pyro developer.

 

- Portriga Rapid has a nice, mild, pinkish/peachy tone for lith printing.

 

- Lith printing allowed very fine "Zone-System-esque" control over the tonal relationship between the sky and the rest of the picture. Due to the underexposed foreground, I am not sure how easy to print it will be using standard methods.

 

- This makes me want to try lithing with warmed-up developer, which I have heard can provide for more extreme effects.

 

- Since the negative is underexposed, yet contrast is not totally out of hand, I may intensify the negative using chromium intensifier, after attempting a standard print to see what I can get.

 

- I may mask the negative for contrast control and "edge effects".

 

- BEWARE OF THE EXTREME DRYDOWN AND LOSS OF SHADOWS WITH MATTE FIBER PAPER!!! I lost several "good" prints due to this. It had been so long since I had printed on matte that I forgot how badly it holds shadows.

Done