All the negatives processed and contact proofing started today. I've seen these images once, in my head, again on the ground glass, as negatives and now I'm printing them on normal contrast paper to see what they actually look like.
Bear in mind- I MECHANICALLY set the composition with a tripod and ground glass. That's a lost art now and not to be underestimated. Years of time and thousands of negatives carefully composed with a double axis: one tilting the camera left and right and the other pointing it up and down. I usually level the camera and use controls- rise and fall of the front lens, to set the image. I'm not just waving a digital around and zooming in and out. I'm very carefully setting the negative space around the subject.
Considerable pains were taken to climb to certain view points, set up the camera and tripod and be there when the light might be at it's optimum. These are highly edited images with an enormous amount of visual, imaginary and intellectual input.....already, and the kill rate during the proofing is STILL going to be over 50%.
So now they go through another edit. I'll pick the ones I actually might want to print from the proofs.
Negatives with any defect go by the wayside. The picks will probably go in a mat for a bit to see how they do on the wall. If they pass the wall test I'll take them into the darkroom for a print.
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