Victorian Voices: Continued
It’s been a little over a year since I put together the first installment of Victorian Voices and I figured it was high time to start it back up again! Early last week I took portraits of two of my fellow classmates who were nice enough to pose for me. Today, I developed those photographs using, for the first time, a technique called tray development. This simply means that you’re developing the negative in a tray instead of a tank. This also means that the process is done in complete darkness.
Darkroom Tray
This is an example of the type of trays I used to develop my four 4x5 negatives.
I had three trays in total; one for developer, one for fixer, and one for HCA.
Developing Tank
This is an example of the tank I normally develop my 4x5 negatives in. Unfortunately, I discovered it broken last week.
After I put the film through developer, fixer, and several stop baths in between, I was able to turn back on the lights and see how my negatives looked. Luckily, my first attempt at tray developing went surprisingly well and the negatives turned out quite nicely!
Below are some photos of the negatives taken with an app called Negative Image. This just helps me to see the positive of the negative.
Once the film dries for 24 hours I can scan it!
First I put the negatives in a scanning tray and make sure they are as clean as possible. Then I put them on the scanner and get a preview. After I’m happy with that, I scan them for real. This can take quite awhile if I scan them at a high resolution.
Tuesday I scanned them and then went out to eat. When I returned, they were done!
