news!

NAVA Bags

Based in Milan, NAVA produce a stylish range of bags and accessories for all forms of personal transport ? we have ?cherry-picked? the range and are stocking all the bags most interesting from the point of view of moving and displaying photographic prints. For carrying prints up to 12x16" have a look at the Nava Cube Bag Box, in a choice of colours, for A3 maybe the NAVA Cube Bag. We have only had them for a few days, but we have them at very keen prices. and they're flying out!
you can buy them here →

Moersch Chemistry

Wolfgang Moersch manufactures a range of sophisticated black and white chemistry, covering every specialised requirement in film and paper processing. We already have some of the range in stock, and should have a large delivery within the next week. See the Moersch website for a full catalogue of the range;
www.moersch-photochemie.de

Steve Gosling Talk

There was a good turnout for the Steve Gosling's pinhole photography event at our place on Sat. 13'th. Steve provided a lively and humorous talk, which was followed by plenty of individual questions and answers over glasses of wine. The exhibition of his work will run in our premises until the middle of August.
Read more at Graeme Webb's blog post about the talk ~ Old Process's & Low Tech Image Making

Exhibition & Talk - "Lensless Landscapes" Steve Gosling

Professional landscape photographer Steve Gosling will be exhibiting some of his stunning black & white images taken with a pinhole camera at Silverprint from 6th June to 7th August 2009.

He will also be giving a talk about pinhole landscape photography and his use of the Zero Image pinhole camera (as well as signing copies of his 'Lensless Landscapes' book) at Silverprint on Saturday 13th June at 1.30pm.

For more information telephone us on 0207 620 0844 or email us sales[at]silverprint.co.uk

To see Steve Gosling's images visit → www.stevegoslingphotography.co.uk

For more information about this press release please contact Steve Gosling at: steve[at]stevegoslingphotography.co.uk

You can buy this beautiful photography book → here at £35.00

And your Original? ~ The Hahnemühle Anniversary Photo Award

Deadline 30th June!

Very few companies worldwide can look back with pride over such a long and rich tradition as Hahnemühle, which is celebrating a 425th anniversary this year. To celebrate they are inviting you to join them and become part of this momentous event by entering The Hahnemühle Anniversary Photo Award.

The Hahnemühle Anniversary Photo Award is aimed at photographers worldwide with the theme "For Originals": We are interested in the photographer's original images and unique angle of capturing an image. Hahnemühle is giving away prizes worth £36.000 and is organizing the winners to tour as an Anniversary Collection - a travelling exhibition which will be visiting the photo capitals of Europe, America and Asia to showcase the winning images.

A published catalogue of the "Hahnemühle Anniversary Collection" will accompany the works of the winners.
There is also a special students category - the college, school or university of the students who win will receive prizes to help support art and photography schools, as well as enable students to have access to high quality inkjet paper.

Find out more about the competition at www.hahnemuehle.com or email ukmarketing[at]hahnemuehle.de

Annual Harman ULF Time Again

Once again Harman are offering the chance to lay your hands on sheet film in non standard sizes. ULF stands for Ultra Large Format, but includes Whole Plate, which only a few years ago was regarded as a standard format. Panoramic formats are particularly well catered for. Films available under the scheme are Ilford FP4 and HP5, packed in 25 sheet boxes as normal, the price shown is excluding VAT.
Orders need to be received by the end of May, the film will be manufactured during June and shipped during July - this is for UK delivery, the US will have to wait for the boat to arrive.
All sizes are available to order in the FP4/HP5 sections of this website, but this is a complete listing;

you can buy them here →

Kodak - Film Manufacture in the '50's

A fascinating historic Kodak 1958 documentary titled "How film is made" has surfaced, showing the production process of film in a Kodak plant as it happened 50 years ago. This was a Dutch language version, thanks to Marco Boeringa, Ray Rogers, Denise and Louis Ross and others who have put in hard work on making an English subtitled version of the film. Thanks also to Marco Boeringa, and again Denise Ross, who are making it available from their websites;

The Light Farm: How Film is made video - - - Kodak 1958 factory film at Boeringa.demon.nl

For those interested in exploring alternative photography through photo emulsion work, Denise Ross's 'Light Farm' website is a revelation, so spend some time looking through it.

Peter Goldfield

Black and white enthusiasts in the UK who remember the 1970's and 80's will be saddened to hear of the death of Peter Goldfield. Peter was influential in fostering the 'rebirth' of B&W photography in the UK during that time. This was initially through his business, 'Goldfinger' which started the re-importation of the cult Agfa monochrome papers, after Agfa UK had discontinued them in 1976. He subsequently moved to the West Country and founded 'Photographers at Duckspool'. This was a serious photo workshop environment which rapidly reached the same status as 'The Photographer's Place' in Derbyshire. Peter simultaneously continued with his own work, which can be viewed on his website → www.duckspool.com

The 'Other Multigrade'

Soft-working print developers in recent years have slipped away from printers familiar territory, and as a blast from the past here is a new one, we are calling Speedibrews 'Adaptol II' in honour of an old Agfa predecessor.

The main characteristic of a soft working developer is a balance of developing agents tilted towards Metol, giving full speed, but controlling build-up of contrast. Most off-the-peg print developers are highly energetic, and tuned up to give maximum contrast from a material, as one would expect. Soft paper developers offer a way of controlling tonal range in the print at the development stage, and usually work about a grade or so softer than normal. They are particularly useful if aiming to produce maximum tonality in the print, and might complement, for example, a negative processed in pyro developer, containing a well separated range of tonal values.

Image colour is normally biased towards warm, when working with warm-tone papers. One technique to explore is using soft-working developer in conjunction with a full contrast print developer, with separate trays of each, giving perhaps 75% of the developing time in the soft working developer, draining quickly and then finishing with the remaining time in the full contrast one. This will have the effect of extending the tonal range with the first stage, and then ramming home the very deepest tonal values during the second part of the development.

Our Adaptol ll is supplied as a 2-part powder pack, making a 1 litre stock solution with plenty of capacity, which dilutes 1+3 for normal use. It dissolves easily when mixed into warm water, and contains components which assist in the mixing, as well as delivering a good Dmax from the metol-biased formula.
The price is £5.75, inc VAT. buy it here →

The test here shows an extreme case; the negative is a hand-coated 8 x 10" glass plate which being made from our SE1 print emulsion could be classed as 'bullet proof', with extremely high contrast and density. Prints were made onto Fomatone 131 glossy warm-tone FB paper, the enlarger head set for grade 2. Agfa Neutol WA was used as control for comparison with the Adaptol ll. Developing time was 1.5 minutes at 20° C.

The Adaptol ll clearly digs into the highlight information while restraining the build-up in the shadows, revealing the plate as the truly distressed artifact it is, and almost creating an art form out of the defects!

The New Fomatone 532

There are more funerals than christenings in photo materials, and it's a rarity for there to be a new black & white photo paper - when it happens, & it's a good one there's cause for serious celebration. This is the replacement for a discontinued Foma paper, Fomatone 'Nature', which became unavailable when the base paper was discontinued. Foma now have a new base paper; the paper is still branded 'Nature' but the code is now 532 ll. Although still using the warm Fomatone chloro-bromide emulsion the paper surface is quite different from it's predecessor, and we consider it now occupies a unique and valuable niche. The previous base had a significant texture, and was approaching matt. The new one is smoother, with a high degree of surface sheen, warm-tone with dense blacks. Visually it can be considered a smooth lustre finish, and can be used as an alternative to 'glossy unglazed'. Sizes are 9.5x12", 12x16", 16x20", and 20x24". The weight is 245gsm, the tint a natural white, ie slightly warm to complement the emulsion.

Pictures are;
Top - straight print in warm developer angled to show the surface sheen.
Left - the same print scanned, Neutol WA developer for normal time.
Below - both light & heavy lith prints using Fotospeed lith developer.