Darkroom Adventures:
I spent two days in the color darkroom on my own in the last week, and have both ups and downs to report.
On Thursday, I popped in for a stint that ended up being six and a half hours. I couldn’t believe how well I did - I got into that groove, and had instincts about the color casts, and brought myself so close to color balanced. When I did ask for opinions from the people going in and out, they all said that I had gotten quite close and it was really a matter of opinion on if I wanted to change something. It was such a nice confirmation. Now that I’m running on a semester’s worth of experience, it’s interesting for me to learn that there really is a personal style to printing. Last semester was all about extreme whites and balance, and now I feel like I can get myself close to it on my own and then decide from there what I’d like the photograph to look like and evoke. I’ve learned that there’s a difference in printing incorrectly and totally unbalanced, and for printing correctly but stylistically, even if there is a bit of a cast to the final print.
Saturday was an odd experience overall. The first photograph was done with relative ease; knowing my color pack from the similar light on other images, I had a great starting point, and brought myself to balanced on my own. I struggled over the second photograph because something odd was happening to the enlarger, but it made me lose my rhythm and get frustrated. I suppose I’ve learned that I can’t blame myself for that, but it just feels hard not to. Also, on Saturday, I had other people with me, and I find that when there are people around me, I tend not to trust my own opinion. I hate this habit, and have a goal to stop doing it - especially because I’ve proven to myself that I really have come quite a long way in the color darkroom.
Of course, crit is next week, so I could be back to square one. Who knows. New color images up at my site, of course.
M
