Digital BW, The Print

My best print......

It has been a while.  About twenty-five years.  I had picked up a 135mm Carl Zeiss Tessar I wanted to try.  I mounted it on a Toyo Field lens board, loaded up some FP4 and went out to a local park.  I shot maybe six different images, returned, and processed the film in HC110.  I printed these negatives on Seagull or PAL paper, processed in Fred Picker's paper developer.  One of those images, "Falls, Oglebay", is the best print I ever made.

The composition was very good, and the print, it glows!  I never measured the Dmax, but the contrast range is fantastic.  The image jumps out at the viewer.  I have scanned that same negative several times, trying to reproduce the same effect, and have come close.  Tried several digital printing techniques. But no ringer.  I get good looking prints, but no magic.

I have never been able to reproduce the quality of that image with my PhaseOne, or D3x.  I recently watched "The Impassioned Eye".  A documentary about Henri Cartier-Bresson.  He talks about losing the eye.  The eye for design.  He is shown printing in his darkroom.  Watching the magic of him manipulating a print during exposure, and then watching that image come up in the tray, has made me nostalgic for the old wet print process. 

I think I paid $35 for that lens.  Sold it for $50.  I am sorry I sold it.  I am thinking of cleaning out my darkroom so it can be used again!

Ben