light and shadow

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

All pictures taken with: Zorki 4K and Jupiter 12 35mm f/2.8.
Ilford HP5+ developed in Tetenal Ultrafin for 13 min.

These were taken during my last trip to San Sebastian. Most of them somehow ended up underexposed. There was some very harsh light that day and I guess I overcompensated a little bit given that the streets in San Sebastian are rather narrow. Now I know that even on a sunny day I should stick to f/8 around here unless there is a lot of sky visible. Nevertheless I think the roll turned out quite nicely anyway. I’d say I’m making some good progress with my Zorki.

As you can see I’m jumping from place to place with my editing. For the next few days I will focus on getting my film editing queue up to speed with my digital queue. At the moment there are still a few rolls to edit before I get to the ones taken in Chemnitz. The most time consuming aspect of editing film shots is to remove dust and scratches. Best not to have any of those in the first place, but I’d say it’s rather unavoidable. The time spent developing, scanning and removing dust obviously makes shooting film much more time-consuming, unless you pay someone else to do all of that for you. Since I’m not a millionaire I’ll have to spend the time rather than the money. And even though all of that might be a hassle, it’s really rewarding as well.

There is nothing quite as magical as how your perception of a frame changes throughout the whole process. First you look at the wet negatives for the first time when you’re hanging them to dry. You don’t see all that much apart from whether you’ve bungled the exposure or whether there might be a few good ones here or there. If you’re impatient like me, once they’re dry and cut, you review them either with a magnifying glass against a light source or possibly make some quick contact prints to see a bit more. Then comes the preview of the scanning software until you finally see the full resolution scan. If you’re one of those fully analog types with a darkroom there is the dim enlarger projection while you check the grain resolution and the final image is the one that magically appears in the developer. That last step is not quite part of my process yet, because I don’t have access to a darkroom yet. One day it hopefully will be. In any case, there is quite a lot of anticipation involved in the process. At times you might get disappointed when you realise that a frame might not quite be as sharp as it looked when you hung them to dry. At other times you might be positively surprised when you see a detail that wasn’t visible before you had the full resolution image.

In digital photography the only comparable step is going from the preview on the camera to the full resolution image on the big screen. It’s just not quite the same, because it’s way too immediate. Maybe that’s why analog photography is so enjoyable: It brings a bit of anticipation and magic back into the process. It’s a bit like Christmas when you’re a kid. Back then you just couldn’t wait for the day and the tension wouldn’t let you sleep the night before. A bit of a wait and anticipation enhances the experience. Well, digital photography is in comparison kinda like we feel after we realise that there is no Santa Claus. Some of the magic got thrown out with the chemicals. No wonder that so many people are eager to bring the magic back!

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