Bob Keefer
Is a writer and photographer who lives in rural Oregon.
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Monthly Archives: May 2010
Hand coloring problem solved, I think
I’m figuring out, at last, how to use digital black and white carbon prints for hand coloring.
Turns out the carbon pigment is well bound to the paper — mostly. So what you need to do is remove the loose particles.
About 30 seconds under cool running water and an all-over scouring with a paintbrush seems to do the trick without noticeably affecting the quality of the print. Most of the ink is tightly attached to the watercolor paper. You can see a trickle of loose ink flow off the page, though.
I then dry the print and give it a spray of workable fixative before painting. That’s a step I would like to skip, if I can perfect the scrubbing; I hate the smell of fixative.
But the scrubbing works.
Painting on the watercolor paper is very different from painting on the smooth, non-absorbent surface of a traditional silver-gelatin print. It will take me a while to get used to the new process.
photo: Twilight in the garden, digital black and white, 2010
And even more twilight BW
I haven’t been able to figure out exactly what is going on here — obviously it’s some kind of digital artifact — but I do love the look. This is taken at ISO 3200 in the garden at twilight, shot into the sky.
And good news on the printing front: MIS sent a new ink system, having concluded that the directions I was given with the last one were incorrect, thus explaining the pale, washed out prints I was getting. Putting the right ink in the right slot, oddly enough, nailed it. The new prints, at least so far, are dead on and gorgeous (and even match what I see on the computer monitor). And a side benefit: No profiles to deal with.
photo: Grape leaves by twilight, digital black and white, 2010
More twilight fun with digital black and white
photo: Garden leaves, digital black and white, 2010
And here’s another one
photo: Grape leaves at twilight, digital black and white, 2010
Here’s a shot I don’t quite understand….
… But I really like it.
I was out this evening at twilight shooting pictures in the garden when I began to get this odd edge effect around the grape leaves. The photo is shot into the evening sky, matrix meter +2 stops, at 3200 ISO. The leaves have a wonderful outline that must result from the blown sky, but I really don’t know. The out of focus areas are beautiful and other-worldly, too.
All the other photos in the series share this look, so long as they were shot into the sky.
I need to play with this some more.
It makes quite a beautiful black and white print, as well.
Photo: Grape leaves by twilight, digital black and white, 2010