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I don’t know what kind of "bug" I’ve caught today. But it certainly wasn’t Ansel Adams who infected me this time. I had taken one of these shots before, but since I hadn’t quite mastered the developing process, I decided to shoot it again. The others were completely new to me. All of them, however, were taken in the center of Lessebo. It’s a two-kilometer walk to get there for me, so Margret drove me down and picked me up again when I was finished. I just don’t have the energy for that extra four-kilometer round trip at the moment.


 
I think there might be some of the frames on the 120 film to work with further, that’s how it looks on the digital contact sheet. I have done two of three projects the last years. "The forest and the lake" plus "The city". Both has resulted in an exhibition. The forest and the lake was photographed at my home lake Laen and the forests around. The city was from my Region central city Växjö. Now I have to complete the third project, The village. It's from my home village Lessebo. This might be a good fit right now, given that I’m not allowed to drive due to my heart problems. Taking more photos here at home, and reaching a point where the work feels complete, shouldn’t pose any major difficulties sometime next year, I would think.



As you can see from the contact sheet, I managed to advance the film carefully enough today to capture all twelve exposures. There was no advancing past the stop point, something that happened with the first two rolls. But by being extra cautious this time, I had better success. I gave the image files a slight yellow-green tint in the blacks, the same tone I typically achieve with the paper I use in the darkroom for this type of images, Fomabrom Variant 111, after a brief protective toning in selenium.




I also generally prefer not to create images of this type with excessive contrast. Instead, I aim for a richer grayscale, featuring subtle gray tones throughout the shadows, midtones, and highlights. There are a thousand shades of gray.Iit would be a shame to lose them by printing with high contrast, which causes the shadows to become completely blocked up.


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