I traveled to Wyoming for a meeting with a group of film photographers who do darkroom printing. The organizer is an expert printer. We spent some time photographing the area around Grand Teton National Park, and some time in a makeshift darkroom doing printing and toning. It was worth making the trip on both counts.
Here are a few film photos from the trip. The film was FP4+, which I developed when I got back.
Film likes light, and this ranch entrance was strongly front-lit. That makes for a contrasty photo and a more-dramatic print. BTW, there were almost always interesting skies to include in the photos.
I drove from Jackson Hole to Dubois, the site of the meeting, towards the end of the day. The low-angled light on the landscape at that hour contributed a lot to an image like this one and the next one.
Also taken on the late-afternoon drive to Dubois.
The hills around Dubois are red, which obviously doesn’t come across in black and white. More great clouds, emphasized by the red filter I put on my lens.
I found this abandoned school bus on the outskirts of Dubois. Irresistible for photographers.
The bus in its environment.
I always visit cemeteries when I travel. I’ve got a whole body of work on them, accumulated over years and trips to quite a few countries.
The challenge now is to make darkroom prints that are as close to these scans as I can. I doubt I’ll get all that close, but the goal is to make them successful as darkroom prints, not to have them best the scans.
