yyt

Developing film tonight – not a nice task as I have to sit in the dark for 40 minutes. I am really overdeveloping the negs so as to use the Ware plaintotype system which in essence sucks. It is too Masonic even with the more than doubling of the time there is barely enough contrast to get more than a grey image and even then only after rituals that would make Masons wince.

Off the point, while developing film, I came to the realisation that what I am doing here is not my best work. I more or less hinted at this when I wrote about my working method and how the choice of materials would change it. A week ago I was ready to recant saying that I like the new working method and in truth I do like it. I like to see how quickly I set up the hulking Deardorff. I like the way it makes me methodical, I can tell when I am distracted as mistakes happen. I have to focus.

Which is precisely why I don’t think that the work here is the best that I could do – wow $12 000CDN to come to this conclusion. I would like to think that my work has a bit of subtly, I think that this comes by the ease of anything not tripod bound. It is not that I cannot marl with a Deardorff, I have become quite adept marching up and down the roads from Cow Head to Trout River with full gear, it is the out that with cameras that are not tripod bound one cannot really see everything that is happening within the field of view. It is these mini-epiphanies that, with me add to the image. It is the surprise.

It seems that when I can get the chance, I will over think and image. Returning to photograph a scene that was ruined doing the Ware Platinotype method, I moved the camera microns to make the image perfect – checking everything to the point that the surprise is gone. While I am completely responsible for the image once I choose to show it, I feel that one cannot formulate serendipity.

The part that bothers me is that I know that they are perfectly acceptable to Parks Canada.

Discussing this with Mack, she doesn’t agree totally she sees the same sort of accident coming when I use the Hobo - which I cannot if I want to photograph something less than two metres away – as the edges become problematic since the framing with the viewfinder is dodgy at best, and the surprises come. Point taken but it seems that something is still missing. Something that would lend itself well to the detail of a 10x8 inch neg.