Film: If you love film or wonder about its riches.......

Why on earth do photographers spend the effort to load film in their old fashioned cameras. For one thing, there's no better place for bargains in getting to the most detailed, sophisticated imaging for bargain prices, as long as you plan this new work to be in 20 to even many 100s of good to wonderful pictures a year, not 10,000 shot a month, LOL!

Look here. An amazing man gives his book away free to a few discreet individuals. If you miss out on this, you will have let a major gift pass by.

Even a $100 it would be a superb value!

Let me know what you find good about it!



Asher

Thank you for the pointer. From a quick glance at the book, however, I would not say that it is a book about film but rather a book about printing (analog, wet, printing). A valuable course if one wants to learn to enlarge in one's own darkroom at home, but not a book on the intricacies of using film in a camera in the field.

Thanks, Asher.

Revival of my darkroom requires only the removal of my daughter's junk, a good cleaning and some fresh chemistry...you never can tell...

Winston,

I gave away my color enlarger, print washer etc! Now I'm interested in printing B&W again. I'll start with contact prints and trays development under inspection.

Asher

Film in its best and highest use - and the next one

We see here the wonder of film in perhaps its best and highest use - the photography of a woman. It is closely connected with its next highest use, the photography of steam locomotives.

This wondrous photo was done in April, 1943, by Jack Delano, employed by the U.S. Government. His original assignment was with the Farm Security Administration (FSA), making photographs to document the situation in America's rural areas during the Great Depression (no, not this one - that one).

When the war broke out (no, not The War to End All Wars - the one right after that), the project morphed a bit to embrace the war effort at home, and came under joint sponsorship with the Office of War Information (OWI).

This frame is one of a series about women wipers at the Clinton, Iowa roundhouse of the Chicago and Northwestern Railway. (Wipers cleaned and oiled the locomotives.) We see here Irene Bracker. I think she is standing in front of C&NW 3034, an H-class 4-8-4 "Northern" locomotive.


The shot was evidently on 3-1/4 x 4-1/4 sheet transparency film. This is a reduced-resolution version of a scan done at the Library of Congress - I also have the full resolution version, a TIFF file (6122 x 7960 ps, 100 px/in). We have no idea what camera was used - perhaps a 3-1/4 x 4-1/4 Graffie.

I have left the file just as it was received, showing the sheet film artifacts (including the dents from the darkroom hanging clips). The notch code (I think Type 14) indicates that the film was "1938-style" Kodachrome Professional daylight (Type 6137) - ASA 8, I think.

Here we see Delano's work with B&W roll film. One of Irene's colleagues (I think it is Viola Sievers) does that age-old job. We don't know whether she also spoke French or not.


The Library of Congress notes indicated that this was on nitrate-based negative stock.

The available TIFF file here is of very low resolution.

Wondrous on many fronts.

Best regards,

Doug