The theme "yellow" presents problems for a photographer who chooses to work in monochrome. I decided that I had to photograph objects that would readily be recognized as being yellow.
I had two basic concepts. The first is "Lemon Yellow"--The lemons (and daffodils) were photographed on a blue table cloth, with the main light coming from a floor lamp, with tilted shade and the fill coming from the ceiling fixture. The other is "Yellow Gold"--the gold pocket watch and fountain pen were photographed using a shaft of mid-afternoon sunlight, with a table lamp for fill. I used my Arax 60, with extension tubes, on an 80 mm Zeiss Jena Biometar, for the lemons, and a 120 mm Arsenal Vega, for the gold objects. I used a medium yellow (#8) filter on both lenses, to lighten the yellow tones (and darken the light blue table cloth the lemons sat on). I used Ilford FP4 film, developed in split D-23, which IMO produces a wider range of tones than most developers.
I scanned the negatives in color and added a little red and blue, to emulate the purplish-brown tones I'll get from selenium-toning the Foma Fomabrom Variant paper on which I plan to print these negatives. I like this paper and think it may be a good replacement for the discontinued Forte Polywarmtone paper I used for years. The final prints should look MUCH better than these scans.
2 comments:
I prefr the first shot of the lemons. Less is indeed more. Nice work, Bob.
I also prefer the first shot of lemons. The third is good as well, and of the pocket watch photos, I think I like the last one because of the reflection in the cover. For the "Yellow" show, I'd go with the first photo.
Post a Comment