Laocoön and His Sons

This is pretty much all you see in the Vatican Museums, I plan to go back off-season (if there is such a time) so I can actually pause and contemplate the pieces I want to see.

This is in the Cortile Ottagono in the Vatican Museums, a beautiful courtyard that was a welcome breath of fresh air on the way through the labyrinthine galleries, where I was stood admiring the sculpture when I was unceremoniously trampled by this marauding herd.

(The sculpture that's out of shot is Laocoön and His Sons and this enlargement is from a scanned strip of negs originally intended just for making a contact sheet, brightened up in photoshop; shot in June 2014 on Ilford FP4 with a 35mm f/2.4 lens)

Colour negative experiment...

Today I tried something I've been meaning to since I first got into a darkroom and never got around to it - I made a black and white print from a colour negative.

My first few attempts were a bit on the grey side, but after a little experimentation I finally achieved the image below; exposed for twenty-five seconds at f/8 with the cyan slider at +50 (not really sure if that made a difference though) on a sheet of 9.5x12in Kentmere VC Select.

Rome: Colour Contact Sheets

Vatican City:

 Florence:

Our last night in Rome, messing about with an expired roll of 35mm...

Rome: B+W Contact Sheets

In June this year I took a trip to Rome; an even though I took both my DSLR and a film SLR, every photograph I took there was shot on film, the images below were taken with a Canon Eos 5 (simply for it's built-in exposure meter), with my beloved Carl Zeiss 35mm f/2.4 lens and shot on Ilford FP4.

I've yet to make any enlargements of any of my photographs (although I hope to soon!), but for now here are the black and white contact sheets...

 

St Peter's Square, Castel St Angelo and along the banks of the River Tiber:

 

I'm a bit of an anorak and love railways, so I made sure we took the opportunity to ride the Frecciarossa to Florence:

 

On our final day in Italy we visited the Vatican Museums; friends recommended I pay extra to get a guide and skip the queues - I personally would advise against this, you save a lot of money if you arrive early and are prepared to wait, then you get freedom to roam around the museums without being in a herd, bumping into groups was always a nightmare and I was grateful to not be a part of one.

Colosseum:

Colour contacts to follow shortly!

Treats!

DIY Darkroom

I'd like to share my progress of setting up a working darkroom at home.

I was fortunate to inherit a dev tank and changing bag from my Dad, and a few other bits and pieces (like a squirrel-hair brush, not to be confused with a squirrel hairbrush, which was an apparent must-have in the 60's), and was also kindly donated a Gnome enlarger and dev trays from a friend.

The same generous friend also donated a bunch of E6 and black and white chemicals, so so far so good!
Found a cupboard in a skip which fits it all perfectly, and I'm slowly clearing out my closet (which needs minimal blacking out as it has no windows or anything).

Got a cheap enlarger timer off ebay (£3.33!) but it cannot be connected to my enlarger because it's too old, however I have been offered a newer enlarger for a very good price - it's just a bit of a hike to pick it up, so we'll see. I can just count elephants for the time being.

It's cost me next to nothing so far and I'm very pleased with my progress; I'd like to be making my own prints before Christmas - an achievable goal I'm sure.

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