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This weekend I set up my darkroom in the basement of the place that I moved into in Septemer. I spent the past few hours cranking out random 5×7 prints from my archive of 35mm shooting. Seeing these images on paper, some of which are four years old, is like cracking open a fine bottle of aged Imperial Stout (Or wine if that is your fancy). Time does wonders with photography.

I’ll probbaly spend days just printing off random stuff from my archive. And in the end, a lot of people will have hand made christmas presents from me.

So I went and picked up the first roll of slide film that I shot with my Yashicamat 124G today. It was from a twilight/night shoot last week. I wasn’t all that impressed with the light conditions that were present during dusk, and just as I suspected, none of the photos from that time period are really worth of being up here. All a bit flat, and lack any WOW factor.

But, when the sun was pretty much gone, and I was heading back towards my car, I ended up just walking past it knowing I still had four exposures left. This is when I set up for what I believed would be the keep shot of the roll. And I’ll be damned, its a keeper.

Last color photo to hit this site was exposed in April 2004. The last time a color photo was married to a night photo and hit this site, was exposed in October 2002.

Those streaks have come to an end, and I love the results. [Click, click click]

Here is my new fangled idea. I haven’t made a contact sheet since 2000. I have an entire binder of pseudo organized 35mm negatives from that point to the present. I want to ultimately contact print everyone and put teh contact print in a page right behind the set of negatives. Its really annoying having to take out each sheet of negatives and hold them up to the light to find a certain one that I’m looking for.

I’m also certain that there is a whole slew of random photos that I can print up and send them to various family members/friends. I’d like to quickly know which ones will be good to do this with without scanning up each individual print.

First two steps are complete. I purchased a 35mm contact printing frame, and today I purchased 125 count box of RC Glossy paper. (The 125 count box being hidden below the 100 count box of the same brand for $1 more in price at the local shop that still peddles traditional materials.)

Now it is just a matter of labor. I can’t wait to see how badly some of this old stuff from before I knew how to read negatives was exposed & developed.

Today I finally got to get some paper wet after doing the calibrations mentioned in this post. I’ve only ran one so far, but it is very exciting to see a strait print holding full shadow detail, and highlights, without having to do endless dodging and burning. I feel so liberated having a completely usable print on a piece of paper where any dodging & burning that will ultimately will be done, will be because its is something I want to change, not just to reach this point.

What I’m wondering now, is how did I get through a whole series of college courses and never once have a professor offer a one week assignment where each student calibrated their materials? I had such a roadblock back then doing complex dodging & burning, just to get workable prints, that I had such little time remaining to “Express my emotions.”

Oh well. The secret has been unveiled to me, time to go back into the darkroom.

Say hello to the newest member of my equipment line-up, Mr. Yaschicamat LM.

I picked it up this weekend at an estate sale that I crossed paths with while driving around looking for random garage sales. Everything appeared to be in great shape, and the price was right, so it has found itself a new loving home.

It should work out well. I’ve wanted something to do work similar to Lake Superior While you Sleep, only on a negative larger then 35mm. 4×5 isn’t the most practical system for this type of shooting, so hopefully this machine can bridge that gap and get me back into the ulta low light photography scene.