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Digital Photographer: A Portrait

from Todd Frederick (fredrick@hotcity.com)

There is a story behind this photograph...a problem and a solution.

This is an impulsive (candid?) portrait of my friend George Lauterstein, who has spent the better part of 40 years in serious Leica B/W photography, discovering the wonders of digital. He is using an Olympus C3030 in this photo and just sent me a set of digital B/W prints from this trip that are unblievably fine.

I took this photo in dim dawn light on a beach near San Simeon CA, with rocks shading the rising sun. I used, by error, 120 Kodak TCN, and exposed it a 200 EI thinking it was TMax400 standard film. The exposure was about 1 sec. at f/2.8 with a Mamiya C330 80mm lens...not optimal exposure conditions. The negative was a nightmare to print...heavy chromogenic mask, very dense, long exposure times, hot lamp negative bending in the enlarger, and general lack of good resolution/sharpness on the negative itself. I just couldn't make a good print on standard glossy or pearl papers. I even thought of having the neg reworked on a Tabgo Drum Scanner through Image Works and have a new neg generated (and still may do that), but, yesterday, it dawned on me that I should go WITH the problem rather than FIGHT it, so I made two fine 8x10 prints on Luminos Tapestry textured FB paper, and the image now has an antique look that seems to suit the less than perfect circumstances.

Just thought I'd pass that along. Cheers.

(posted 8631 days ago)

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