chris_jordan

Hi folks,

 

A free large-format group happening will go down on the

weekend of October 4&5 in the Shawangunk Mountains of New

York State. This is one of the Nature Conservancy's "Last Great

Places", located about an hour and a half north of New York City.

It�s a wonderful place that I've been exploring for years. It�s a real

gem. You can see some images at:

 

 

http://www.jordanphoto.com/shawangunkimages1.html

 

 

I have a two-day shooting itinerary planned, which will involve

some moderate hiking. There will also be a place and time for

sharing and discussing work. Any instruction will be informal

and all are invited to participate in an open exchange. It should

be a great opportunity for LF folks in the east to powwow. There

are many places to stay in the area, like campsites, B&B's and

motels.

 

Just a note of clarification -- I'm not the same Chris Jordan from

Seattle who recently had his fabulous work published in View

Camera Magazine! However, I AM hopelessly hooked on LF, and

am generally knowledgeable.

 

If interested, please send an e-mail to me for further details:

 

gazebophoto@hotmail.com

I'll look out for it, Chris. Congrats.

 

PS I'm visiting Seattle this coming weekend/week. Hopefully my presence with large format camera in the area won't cause some kind of space/time anomaly and cancel either of us out.

 

Chris (Rochester) Jordan

Just wondering if you might be using an external (lens attach) filter system, like Lee, etc. I've experienced some flair problems with this system, resulting in odd, discolored, repeating wave patterns, often toward the outer perimter of the image area. My solution now is to place filters behind the lens (in camera). Might not be the same problem, but I thought I'd mention it...

Hello all,

 

I'm putting together an informal large-format workshop for

sometime in late summer/early fall, in the Shawangunk

Mountains of southern NY State. I was hoping to gain a sense of

interest.

 

It would be informal and free, open to all with a (reasonably)

positive attitude and a love for large-format landscape

photography and some of the contemporary issues assocated

with it.

 

-Open to all levels.

-Open instruction in large-format, negative/chrome construction

-Open exchange of ideas

-Chance to share work

-Chance to meet other photographers

-Opportunity to visit a special and unique area

 

Should you have interest, please drop me an email!

 

Chris Jordan (the one in Rochester, NY)

 

gazebophoto@hotmail.com

 

www.jordanphoto.com

You could probably find a Chromega head. Although using a

condenser might not be your cup of tea, with a little more work

and sweat, you can make snappier prints!

 

Chris Jordan- rochester

Lots of good info.

 

Make sure your GG is aligned. If your eyesight's bad, use a

loupe.

 

I also think that using a condenser head pops local contrast in

such a way as to increase perceived sharpness beyond the

optical advantages.

 

Chris Jordan (Rochester)

Hey all you Western NY Staters...

 

Anyone interested in getting together sometime for some (brrr)

winter shooting? I'm from Rochester.

 

Chris Jordan (Rochester)

www.jordanphoto.com

I love my Tachihara. I'm afraid that it gets driven pretty hard and

has taken some knocks, but it sees to be holding up well. Sure it

lacks some bells and whistles and could be somewhat more

rigid, but so is my Honda Civic. More than a few of my photos

are awful, but it�s not my poor camera's fault!

 

The only real concern issue I have is the front standard. The way

it has been engineered, it has a tendency to "rock" within the

grooves when unhitched, so that it might not line up to be

perfectly zeroed out on its own. This may give some

unintentional swing. There are some screws along each groove

at parallel spacings, however, that may be used to help "line it

up". Good luck!

 

Chris Jordan (Rochester)

www.jordanphoto.com

I recently busted the outer glass on my SuperScreen. Just

wondering if anyone knows of a particular supplier that carries

replacements. I do know that I can just cut glass to size for this,

but I prefer having the ruled grid. thanks!

 

Chris Jordan (Rochester)

Personally, I'm none too familiar with 4x5 films that fast, but one

of the surest ways to get grain is to vary the temperature of your

developing solutions (what most folks try to avoid doing in the

effort to achieve a fine grain negative)

 

So, maybe do a pre-soak @75 degrees (F), your development

@68, your stop @80, fixer @55, wash @75. That should do it,

you rebel!

 

Chris Jordan (Rochester, NY)

Hey folks,

 

I've been pondering this one for a while.

 

I have a second set of my portfolio which is used for marketing,

begging for shows, etc. It gets hauled around a lot, and has

suffered some ware. In spite of best efforts to handle with kid

gloves, some of my prints have the inevitable very superficial

surface scratches.

 

Risking my prints pealing from the dry mount, I tried light

steaming, which restored some of the sheen, but the marks

remain slightly noticeable in angled light. I also have some

"Renaissance Wax", but am hesitant to use it save for a last

resort? Now, I can certainly live with these flaws, as I have my

"show" prints which are in better shape in deep storage, but I'm

just curious if anyone has come up with some good fixes for

surface scratches?

 

Thanks,

 

Chris Jordan (Rochester, NY -- no not a THIRD Chris Jordan; I

just moved from Boston to Rochester!)

 

www.jordanphoto.com

I once thought about this too after seeing some very haunting

platinum prints. I actually prefer the look of silver, but was

impressed where the platinum prints "resided" in the tonal

spectrum.

 

I worked one image to death, although I was quite pleased with

the result. By developing the negative longer and SLIGHTLY

compressing the highlights, and then printing on lower filtration

(or using a split filtration technique), I was able to gain some of

the very subtle tonal transitions in the mid to upper level tones I

was looking fo (read: creamy, soft, buttery highlights). I printed a

bit darker as well, but all the while still trying to keep the

"atmosphere" of the print open and glowing.

 

I prefered the color of a selenium-toned, cold paper, so I didn't

address the platinum color issue with this example. I'd be

curious though about the suggestion for Ilford Warm Tone

Paper.

 

Good luck,

 

Chris Jordan (Rochester, NY)

www.jordanphoto.com

Just a heads up to anyone who has the occasion to visit Boston;

there's an exhibit of landscape photography at the Museum of

Fine Arts. Its sort of a broad "survey" spanning the 1800s through

the present, covering the varied processes, approaches and

aesthetics from Albert Renger-Patsch to Weston to Shibata to

Sally Mann(!) There were many that I didn't care for (which I think

were included for name recognition and "variety") although there

were some stunners, like the Shibata, Weston, Adams,

Caponigro... but that just tells you about what I like!

 

Worth the visit? Yeah, I think so...

 

Chris Jordan (Boston)

 

www.jordanphoto.com

Oh great, Chris Jordan... now I'm going to have to get an 8X10

too!

 

-Chris Jordan (Boston)

 

(ps congrats and have fun!)

I would definately be interested. I'm from the Boston area, but will be moving this fall to Rochester. Depending on schedule, I'd love to drop by, though. I've discovered many great places to make photographs in the greater Boston area. I don't know much about West/Central.

 

At any rate, the east coast has some super shooting opportunities. Good idea!

 

Chris Jordan (Boston)

www.jordanphoto.com

I've rigged up a swing, so both my hands and feet are free for

dodging and burning. Also, laying in a hammock greatly reduces wash

times.

If you're on a tight budget, get the Tachihara. I love mine--its very

light, and stable enough for most of my shooting situations (even on

the extremely windy Cape Ann). However, if you're interested in using

longer lenses (270+) you might run into coverage issues because the

bellows isn't all that long. I think they might make a bellows

extension, though, but I'm not positive. Good luck!

I feel that if you keep just keep shooting until you discover your

visual passions, work at it with a sense of personal integrity (e.g.

compose images in a way that serves the piece, versus blatantly

copying someone else), and just keep plodding along, eventually

you'll have art that you'll be proud of. A unique identity will

emerge on its own. No worries! I bet there will always be *someone*

who will enjoy your stuff!

 

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Best,

 

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Chris

I think strong photographs are the result of an intimate visual

dialogue beteen the artist and subject. The photograph is the

material product of this interchange, and if it can be characterized

as "beautiful" in and of itself, then I think it has succeeded,

regardless of how it compares to the original "scene".

Hey folks,

 

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I was reading the post about Yaakov Asher Sinclair's darkroom ventilation difficulties, and was wondering if someone knows which chemicals specifically (developer, stop, fix) seem to present the greatest hazards? Any doctors or chemists out there? thanks!

 

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Chris

Hi folks,

 

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Just wondering if someone has a good procedure for enlarger alignment, without the use of that special tool sometimes used for aligning Omega enlargers. Thanks!

 

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Chris

With a friend's help, I made my own table/stand out of plywood board

and 1x2's for my Omega. Its only 3 feet tall, to allow ceiling

clearance (I print 16x20), but since I'm not exactly of basketball

player stature, this is cool. You just need to shim it so it sits

level and voila--a very inexpensive option. Have fun!

Simon,

 

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I would recommend using a highly diluted developer, long development

time, and minimal agitation (just enough to avoid streaking).

 

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For N-4 (HP5, FP4) I use D-76, diluted 1:4, 66 degrees, for 12

minutes, agitating 10-15 seconds every three minutes. This length of

time allows for sufficient shadow development, while the reduced

agitation allows the dilute developer to exhaust in the highlight

areas (and not block them up) For N-5, maybe 10 minutes... For

greater compensations, I'd try 1:5. You'll need to experiment with

your own set-up and run some tests, etc.

 

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Just be sure when mixing dilutions that you don't reduce the amount

of developer used, but instead add more water to get the right ratio.

This way you'll ensure that there's minimally enough developer in the

solution to carry out the job.

 

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I've heard that, at some point, highlight values can become too

blocked-up on the shoulder, so that instead of tones separating

during a compensation development, they just come down as a

large 'chunk'. For example, if your zones VI-VIII received so much

light that all available silver was exposed across this gradation,

you would effectively be compressing these tones into D-Max at the

top end of the curve, and they would then behave as one value, and

would thin uniformly during compensation, yielding a printable value,

but with no separation.

 

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This stuff can be amazingly interesting play with. Have fun!

 

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Chris

Woops, forgot to mention that... I use 66 degrees for everything.

That happens to be what my cold water tap runs at, and usually I get

some drift up to 68 over the time of development (I use trays, which

have a lot of exposure to the warmer air in the room). If you start

at 68, I'd say take a minute off each of those times, for starters.

good luck,

Chris

I've never used pre-exposure, personally. I've heard there is less

need for this with modern films. A student of mine

recently "achieved" an "N-8" through very high dilution, long

development, and spare agitation.