My First Thread

[Dankster]

These are a few prints that i developed in my Photography 2 course. I used 400 TMAX and pushed it to 3200 with no flash. I really like high contrast and slightly darker pictures, but when these scanned, they came in alittle darker then the orignal print. This is my first semester doing photography again in 3 years, so please give me all the criticism and advice you might have. Thanks.

[mtbbrian]

Welcome to PR.com.
I hope you learn as much and, hopefully more, from here than you will in school.
I like the second and fourth shoots the best, they are the more images.
They do seem a little dark or over over processed or something.
I look forward to seeing more of your photography.
Good Luck in school.
Brian

[Asylum Steve]

Hi,

It's not a question of light or dark, these pics are basically MUDDY, which means there's no SNAP, or clean contrast...

That's not a reflection on you as a photographer, but more your processes...

It's cool you're old school and shoot film, but we need more info to help you. What were your exposures? How exactly did you have this film push processed? Yourself? Or a lab?How was it printed? How was it scanned and digitally processed for the web?

When you post in Critique you need to give as much shooting and processing info as possible so we know exactly what we're looking at.

I can tell you, even from viewing these IMPERFECT pics that your eye is GOOD. These shots can be printed much better, so, let us tell you how...

These are a few prints that i developed in my Photography 2 course. I used 400 TMAX and pushed it to 3200 with no flash. I really like high contrast and slightly darker pictures, but when these scanned, they came in alittle darker then the orignal print. This is my first semester doing photography again in 3 years, so please give me all the criticism and advice you might have. Thanks.

[Dankster]

Thank you Steve for your comments. I am new to developing my own prints, but ive noticed that pushing film so many stops creates a very grainy picture. Sometimes i think this looks good, but i also think it could as to the 'muddyness' of the photo. I push my film myself, and print it all myself, so the problems are undoubtedly with my technique. I used all high contrast filters for these, between a 3.5 and a 4.5. One of my biggest problems in the darkroom is judging the time the photo should stay in the developer. By the time it reaches what i think i like, it usually come out to dark.

What are some general causes for muddy prints in the darkroom, and is there anything i can do on the street taking pictures that would help clear these up, because i see this a a running problem in most of my prints.

Unfortunately, I'm going home to Maine and the darkroom I use is in NYC. So i assume i will have to have my prints dev. at the camera store. Do you think these would have come out the same way then?