Grit & grain are the heart & soul in 35mm negative

Darkroom Prints

29 May

Growing up in a catholic family naturally meant attending a catholic school which had close links to the nearby St. Winefride’s Church. We would often be plucked out from our lessons to walk the 5 minutes to church to pray, sing and rejoice in never ending religious festivals.

Dad had close links to this church when he was younger and I guess he tried to keep it going by passing down the faith to his kids. We’d be dragged huffing and puffing to church on a Sunday morning to sit on cold hard benches, relieved now and then by a few moments of kneeling and standing.

After more huffing and puffing I was enrolled as an alter boy and dressed with red tunics with itchy neck ruffles and heavily starched white over dresses. I would be made to stand still for an eternity or glide around the alter. Highly trained in the art of being in the right spot at the right time for each section of the service.

Sometimes, to spruce proceedings up a notch, I was the designated bearer of the big gold plated thurible. Smoke billowed out spreading the scent of sweet baby Jesus throughout the congregation as I rocked it back and forth to the rhythm of Father Kelly’s service.

But I wasn’t cut out for that particular cloth, I didn’t have the attitude or the right haircut. I had an abundance of comedy silliness which was nipped in the bud with a clip round the ear from the priest when I got the giggles. Right there on the alter, in front of mum, dad and the whole congregation. Wallop! Can you imagine? But I took my punishment on the chin ear and vowed “No more!”

I persuaded my dad to come with me back to the church. Not for prayers or singing or sermons, this was strictly nostalgia and part of a mini project I was working on about my old home town.

“Natural light levels in the church were low so a couple of extra stops was a godsend (pun intended).”

I shot some portraits on HP5 at box speed with the Mamiya RZ67. My shutter speeds were slow and my apertures wide open, but the hefty beast was mounted on a tripod. The only niggle was getting into a decent position and placing the legs between the pews without making a racket. You could hear a pin drop in there.

Pushing HP5 a couple of stops is pretty much the norm when I’m shooting 35mm, unless it’s super bright, but that’s not often in the UK! The extra couple of stops allows manageable shutter speeds with a closed down lens of ~f11 for zone focusing.

I went handheld with the Nikon FE2 and 35mm lens for some looser studies of dad amongst the pews and naturally set the ISO to 1600. Without the need for the tripod I could move with ease between the pews.

I pushed the roll in Ilfotec HC at the standard time. I just developed, no meter for the shadows, develop for the highlights, the dense blacks and shadows contrasting the pale walls with grit and grain was exactly the look I wanted.

In the darkroom I made some initial test strips with a #2.5 filter. I settled on filter #1 to pull back and flatten the highlights to prevent the tops of the pews – and the top of dad’s head, from blowing out. Next I upped the contrast with filter #5 to paint in the dense blacks then rejoiced in the choir of grit and grain singing from the paper.