Aphrodite III

[Pete Askew]

Just as a comparison, I have now printed the Aphrodite negative. I framed it to reproduce the crop used in Aphrodite II. As you know, the original image was shot onto New55 film using a Speed Graphic and Aero-Ektar lens (see first link below). The negative was fixed in Ilford Rapid Fixer (mixed 1:1 with water and then washed and dried - this was done in my kitchen in England and so a few spots of dust crept in) and printed onto Ilford MGIV FB Matt paper (16" x 12") using a Devere 507 enlarger fitted with a Heiland Split-Grade controller + 150mm Apo-Rodagon enlarging lens (at f1:22). A base exposure of 32s at G4 was used although her face was dodged for 2/3 stops (i.e. 2 exposures were made so I could dodge that area in the first - one of the annoyances of using a split-grade controller) and 1 stop vignette was added. The paper was developed in Ilford MG developer for 2 minutes and then fixed and washed. After drying the print was stained using strong black coffee (freshly filtered of course - but goodness knows how old!) then washed and dried. The print was copied using a Hasselblad 503CW + 50mm Zeiss Distagon CF f1:4.0 onto a PhaseOne P20 back. The raw file was processed to a 16 bit TIFF file using CaptureOne Pro and this was then imported into Lightroom. A border was added in ColorFX.

Links

http://www.realphotographersforum.com/forum/threads/shooting-aphrodite.21296/

http://www.realphotographersforum.com/forum/threads/aphrodite.21289/

http://www.realphotographersforum.com/forum/threads/aphrodite-ii.21294/

 

[Rob MacKillop]

It's perfect, isn't it? I don't know what else to say.

 

[Pete Askew]

Thank you, Rob.

Actually it was quite hard to print as there is such a low range of tones present in the negative. I could almost certainly have printed it with higher contrast but I wanted to reproduce what came from the original positive and the scanned negative. I have framed it but it's a bit of a nothing picture I think. Mind, I'm not feeling well so maybe it is just me!

 

[Rob MacKillop]

There's a good touch of sentimentality about it, for sure, but the toning staves off any schmaltz. I like it.