Lighting Pt 2 (Fashion Photography): Diary

Compared to the last project, this project was horrible. My negatives were all very badly lit, and I had a lot of trouble making them dark enough, light enough, and/or with enough contrast. When I was shooting with Tessa was especially frustrating because the 2nd light I was going to use broke immediately before I was going to use it. Also my compositions weren't very good, so I was struggling to get the pictures I needed. I should have reshot at the beginning, but I didn't think that they would turn out so badly. While developing my actual prints, I was very often frustrated. My times were already long for my print of Randal (the shoe print), and by the time I needed to double them, I was getting up to 400 seconds on a single print. As you can imagine, this was quite frustrating. However, once I got to the print of Tessa (clothing print), I started out with a test strip of 4 seconds going up, which was unheard of. I was ectsatic. I ended up with a final print at 68 seconds, but that was still much better than 400. It was nice having the dark rom fairly empty though. I was able to work at 2 enlargers simultaneously for a time, which sped up the process greatly. Also, at the very end of the project, I had the darkroom to myself. This was very relaxing and stress-free, since I didn't have to maneuver around other people's prints (and bodies). Overall, this project was quite stressful, but I learned some valuable lessons that will hopefully help me in the future.