I spent a week in Montana the middle of June at a B&W Photography/Printing workshop hosted at the Photographer’s Formulary, and led by Nathan McCreery. We focused on shooting and printing B&W film.
We had gotten up early to shoot, just after sunrise, at a nearby location called Swan Lake. Once the light on the lake had gotten too harsh, I headed with my camera down a disused trail, and happened on this scene of a pair of trees growing out of a trunk. Scenes like this always make me contemplate the tenacity of life. So I made this image.
I plan to make a silver print of this image sometime soon, but this is a scan of the negative. The photograph was made with my B&J 4×5 press camera, 150 mm lens, Ilford Delta Pro 100 film, developed in PMK PYRO developer and scanned on an Epson V700 flatbed scanner.
Staining developers stain the gelatin and in the process mask the grain. Staining has the potential to mute the highlights without effecting the shadows.
PMK Pyro started my enjoyment of Pyro developers, I’ve switched up to Pyrocat-HD which is also a beautiful developer.
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Is there a particular reason for the switch? How would you say they differed?
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shorter developing times and true film speeds, also less toxic 😀
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Thats good to know. The toxicity of the PMK is a concern.
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I never saw any ill effects, and that’s being cavalier and not using gloves 😛
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