I’ve mentioned on numerous occasions about my digital workflow which has been the sole method I’ve managed to get my images out of my apartment and into the wider world. I started large format photography with the main intention of getting away from a computer, as shooting digital felt much like a busman’s holiday (I’m a web developer by trade).

And while a chunk of the process did indeed get me away from the computer, to produce a final image was very much office based – I would scan negatives on my Epson flatbed scanner, make the necessary adjustments in Lightroom and then the final print was a digital print using a large format Epson printer.

Today, I can proudly say that is no longer my workflow! I am now officially a darkroom printer.

I have been almost exclusively shooting 8×10 negatives for the past year as I realised that the likelihood of having my own dedicated darkroom any time in the near future was slim and many a photographer has gushed about the beauty of an 8×10 contact print. My pop-up darkroom has given me the opportunity to realise those 8×10 contact prints and beautiful and sharp they are too.

It has taken a little while to get to this stage and a little bit of creativity but I have a modest – very, very modest compared with previous “Show Us Your Darkrooms” – but functional pop-up darkroom. By day, my bathroom plays out its duty as a bathroom but by evening it’s my 8×10 contact-printing refuge.

My darkroom equipment consists of an LPL 3301D 35mm enlarger, that is precariously balanced on an Esky, which suffices purely as a controllable light source. This is plugged into an Ilford DT600 timer – a wonderful piece of equipment I picked up from eBay a year or so ago knowing eventually I would have a darkroom of some description. It harks back to days gone by of punched cards. Literally. It came with a card puncher and blank punched cards to store timing data that you can program into the timer. I use a sheet of 5mm glass to hold down the negative on top of the photographic paper.

To complete the outfit, I purchased an office stacked tray affair which I use for chemicals. I was unable to fine a three tray unit and so the stop bath sits in a tray of its own. The stacked trays saves considerable room that would normally be needed for a line of trays and it has been working very well. Developer in the top tray, fixer in the bottom, stop bath off to the side.

It takes less than 10 minutes for me to get the darkroom prepped to print and so not a chore in the slightest. Of course, given the opportunity for a larger dedicated space, I’d jump at it. For the time being it’s all I have but, most importantly, it works.

As I say, a modest set up which has been working very well for me and giving me a great opportunity to start honing my skills as a printer in a very limited environment. I foresee my Epson scanner starting to gather dust…

Large Format Photography Australia has been running for over two years now and it felt like it was time for a new lick of paint as we’ve been running the same design and format for all that time.

So, after several months of redesign and redevelopment, I’m proud to announce the launch of our rebranded blog, The Large Format Blog! I’m really pleased with the new design – with bigger images, to me it feels much more up to date and modern and I hope you feel the same. I’d certainly welcome your comments.

We will continue to primarily support large format photography in Australia but are also keen to bring in content from elsewhere so you’ll start seeing stories and articles from Europe, the USA and elsewhere over the next few months. But we’re not abandoning you, Australia!

The new site is still very much a “beta” release and so while content will be posted on the new site, this old one will stick around for some time to come. So please, kick the tyres a bit and if you see anything that looks odd, out of place or just weird, please get in touch and we’ll fix it as soon as possible.

Comments are going to be moved to the Disqus platform which, if you register on Disqus.com, you’ll be able to track and follow conversations much more easily. Talking of which, get involved if you haven’t posted any comments! We’d love to get your feedback on stories we’re posting!

Head over to thelargeformatblog.com and take a look.

Cheers!

Alastair and David

Make of this as you will! Interesting results at the very least.

“For a long time I thought that photographs showed the viewer what the world looked like. It wasn’t until college that I learned that a photograph could tell a story. While studying photography at Massachusetts College of Art I began a series of self portraits that now span 25 years. I was 18 years old when I began to take them. These self portraits helped me better understand who I was and what I hoped to become. I still continue to make these self-portraits, but in a new setting: in 2005 I married an Icelander and moved to a farm in the eastern part of Iceland.

In Iceland, the landscape and the weather are infinitely changing. Age and decay create a surreal world of rituals that may appear unappealing or in some cases, grotesque. The rituals of farming and hunting are slow, deliberate, and labor intensive. Fishing, hunting, planting and gathering are considered pastimes for many people in the developed world. The pace of farming is slow, dictated by nature, economy and sheer will. Farming, to me, can be seen as a physical manifestation of a human’s determination. A farmer’s efforts are uncertain; such a life choice seems noble.

The affects of a cross-cultural life inspires the characters that I create. Here in Iceland—a culture embedded with ancient sagas, myths of elves that live inside rocks and so on—I hear many voices that come to life.

My adult experiences have informed my sensibility and allowed me to expose the hidden world of the stories nurtured within my mind. As a woman, I interpret these cultural stories in a primal and sensual way. To embody what is sometimes ordinary, sometimes purely feminine and sometimes supernatural is to seek a way to make private images public.

I use a 4X5 view camera to create my images. From beneath my dark cloth, I compose the edges of a story that reveals my inclusion in a place. My photographs are the language that connects me to truths deep within myself. In that split second when the lens-shutter clicks, fantasy and reality become one.”

—Agnieszka Sosnowska

From Lensculture…

Currently half price USD 37.50

Although this book was first published in 2004, it remains one of the best contemporary fine art nude photography books published. Photographed around Lake Superior in the USA (in all seasons) Craig Blacklock uses a 4×5 camera with sensational results.

The essay by Honey Blacklock – the model who married the photographer during the project – is extremely good. The large scale book is beautifully printed.

This is a must for large format photographers, and currently half price and signed!

More info…

Stills Gallery. Sydney
until 2 May 2015

Jane Brown’s beautiful and ambiguous photographic work appears to originate from a different era but simultaneously depicts contemporary subject matter. The meticulous process that Brown employs and the careful presentation of her hand-printed, black and white works, places them in a liminal realm between being images and objects.

The title of her latest series Black Ships suggests the idea of a Western perspective on Japan. ‘Black Ships’, was an idiom used by the Japanese for Western vessels approaching their shores and dates from the 16th century when the hulls of Portuguese vessels were painted black with pitch. The term became a symbol of the end of Japan’s isolationist policies and the modernisation that ultimately ensued. The images in Brown’s Black Ships are laden with symbolic meaning – pathways and bridges to reflect the idea of a journey, bandaging and wrapping symbolic of past wounds, walls and fences figurative of boundaries and cultural isolation, nature and decay referencing the Japanese concept of mono no aware (mortality and a pathos for the transience of things). A key image features the cherry blossom, richly symbolic in Japanese culture and celebrated for its ephemeral beauty, whilst also a symbol of nationalism. In World War II, for example, kamikaze pilots would paint them on the side of their planes. And the souls of dead soldiers were thought to be reincarnated in the petals of the cherry blossom.

Ultimately, Black Ships is a travelogue that looks to the strange machinations of history, and at the same time, a reflection on contemporary Japan. Seen through a traveller’s eye, it acknowledges the photographers who travelled there in the mid 19thcentury (the timeless gardens of the Silver Pavilion and the natural environment may well have been documented in daguerreotype 150 years ago). It also responds to Japan’s militarism of the 20thcentury – born out of the policy to modernise – and the horrific consequences of atomic warfare. Brown aims to convey the complexity of emotions experienced when visiting a city like Hiroshima. More broadly it is an articulation of curiosity, seeking out points of difference from home – the peculiar, the beautiful and the unfamiliar.

Jane Brown has exhibited widely in Australia. Recent exhibitions include Melbourne Now at the National Gallery of Victoria, The Sievers Project at the CCP, Island of the Colourblind at Breenspace Sydney, CCP Declares: On the Nature of Things at The Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, Australian Gothic at Edmund Pearce, Melbourne. Brown is a recipient of the Art and Australia/ Credit Suisse emerging artist award for 2013 and was a 2012 and 2013 finalist in the Bowness Prize at the Monash Gallery of Art. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including Art and Australia journal, The Australian and The Age newspapers. Her work is held in major Australian collections including the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the National Gallery of Victoria.

More info…

A practical guide explaining how to choose exposure and contrast of the print starting from the test strip.

Salmon Rocks. silver gelatin photograph from 4×5 pinhole camera by David Tatnall.

Monash Gallery of Art. Victoria
2 May 2015
12.30 – 3.30pm
$75

In conjunction with Earth Matters: Contemporary Photographers in the Landscape exhibition.

Join exhibiting artist DAVID TATNALL and discover the landscape around MGA in a new light. Bring your camera and your imagination as we create new views of the landscape using scanners and photocopiers in this hands-on workshop.

Bookings essential, includes afternoon tea

$60 Friends of MGA & students

$75 non-members

More info…