Photographs on Ilford Stand at Photokina

Found this post sitting in my blog drafts. No idea why I didn't post when I wrote it in September but suspect blogger crashed again on my mobile and I forgot to go back to it:

Just received a photo, courtesy of Steven Brierley, of my pictures on the Ilford Photo stand at Photokina 2014. Visit them on stand A10/B15 in Hall 3 until 21st September.

Making your first black and white print

Darkroom Papers and Printing
Introduction
The key to good black and white printing is control of the contrast. To make it easy to follow, numbers have been assigned to contrast levels and these are referred to as grades. The scale can vary between manufacturers but typically the contrast range is numbered between grades 0 and 5. Normal contrast is around grade 2 or 3, low contrast is 0 and high contrast is 5. As the grade number increases so does the contrast.

The papers are sensitive to blue and green light (as well as white light of course) but not orange and red. This means that they can be handled for exposure and processing under red or orange coloured lights. These are called safelights.

Types of photographic darkroom papers
There are 2 basic types of darkroom printing papers:
Graded: these are papers with fixed contrast. If you need to change the contrast in a print you will have to buy another box of paper with different contrast. This has led to a considerable reduction in the use of these papers and a reduced range of grades being available to buy. Ilford for example only make grades 2 and 3 for Galerie graded paper. Film needs to be processed so that the contrast of your films is roughly matched to the contrast of the paper.

Variable Contrast, VC: This type of paper gives you all the contrasts from grades 0 to 5 in one box. You change the colour of the light used for the exposure to change the paper contrast. A leading example of this type of paper is Ilford Multigrade and it has effectively replaced graded papers for creative printing.

RC or FB:
RC stands for resin-coated and is much easier and quicker to use. You will be making good prints more quickly with RC paper.

FB is for Fibre-Based. This gives the ultimate quality, maximum black density and archival lifetime. The increase in density as prints dry is very difficult to judge, even for an experienced printer.

It is much more difficult to use properly so I would suggest that you don't use FB papers until you are making good prints with RC paper.

Surfaces:
Glossy gives deepest blacks and hence greatest contrast. There will be lots of reflections off the surface making fingerprints and other marks highly visible. It is not good for situations with lots of handling of prints.

Matt gives dark grey not black when compared to a glossy print. It is best for high key images or those which don't have strong blacks. It is also good for displaying prints in areas where there is lots of light from many directions as it will not pick up reflections on the surface.

Pearl is the compromise between glossy and matt. It is good for framing prints without a window matt as the lightly textured surface prevents patterns forming between glass and print surface. It also easier to handle as any marks are less obvious.

If you are new to darkroom printing I suggest you start with RC Pearl paper.

How photographic darkroom papers work
There is no ink in a darkroom print! The density in a black and white darkroom print is silver metal. The silver is coated with gelatin to hold it in place and is often referred to as a silver gelatin print.

Contrast comes from having different levels of silver built up across the print. With VC papers it is controlled using specific colours of light. The useful colours that make variable contrast papers work are from blue to green light. In practice, filters are used to block particular colours.

Ilford Multigrade papers contain 3 emulsions with different sensitivities to blue and green light. All 3 emulsions have the same high sensitivity to blue light which gives lots of density and this increases the contrast. Using blue-green or green light the sensitivity of each emulsion varies so this produces less density and in turn lower contrast.

In practice, exposure times are shorter using the complementary colours of yellow and magenta. A yellow filter blocks out most of the blue light for low contrast, magenta filters allow blue light to pass through resulting in high contrast.

Filters
Filters for VC papers come in various shapes and sizes. Some enlargers have VC heads with the filters built-in. These are the easiest to use. Under lens filters and above lens filter drawers are quite easy to use too. The filter kits cover all of the grades from 0 to 5 in ½ grade steps. Under the lens filter kits are usually provided with a universal filter drawer that will fit any enlarger. 

Colour Heads are not so easy to use but tables of filter settings for different enlarger heads are provided in every box of paper. The yellow and magenta filters built in to every colour head enlarger can be used but lack the high contrast and will not give grade 5 and some struggle to reach grade 4. Also, exposure times vary as filters are changed unlike filter kits where exposure times are constant as grades are changed.

An advantage of VC and colour head enlargers is that they produce diffused light which reduces hair and dust that would be visible on prints from other types of enlarger.

The Process
To make a black and white print there are 2 essential chemical steps, Develop and Fix, with an optional Stop between them. You will need 3 dishes and they must be labelled to avoid contamination of the developer. A trace of fixer in developer can lead to inconsistent results.

Use the times and dilutions stated on the products that you buy. The chemicals are usually liquid concentrates. You just pour out the required amount of each, add water and stir.

The first solution is called a developer since it develops the latent image formed in paper by the enlarger exposure.

The second optional step uses a so-called stop bath. The only purpose of this is to stop development by converting the print from being slightly alkaline to slightly acid. This has the effect of extending the life of the fixer so that more prints can be processed (fixer is much more expensive than stop bath!). Note, water cannot be used as a stop bath, it must be weakly acid and commercial products are either acetic (smells of vinegar) or citric acid (odourless).

The final chemical step is fixing with a fixer solution. This is essential as it makes the print stable to light by removing surplus silver that hasn’t been used in forming the image on the paper. If you skip this step your print will go black when you turn on the room lights!

You can now turn on the room lights.

The final step is to wash your print in running water. RC papers only need about 5 minutes and the temperature has to be above 6ºC for it to be effective. FB papers need at least 30 minutes.

The print can now be hung up to dry for an hour or two on a washing line over a sink or bath, or dried with a hair dryer which usually takes a few minutes. FB papers will need many hours to dry.

During each step agitation is crucial. Don’t just put the print in the dish and wander off, rock the dish to move the chemicals around the print. This avoids local exhaustion of the chemicals in contact with the print.

Note, the basic photographic chemicals for black and white printing are not hazardous when used correctly. Follow the health and safety recommendations on the chemical packaging. 

Basic Test Strips
In order to make a print you need to choose an exposure time by making a test print. In fact you usually cut strips of paper about 2 inches or so wide so that one sheet of paper does several test strips. Take the negative carrier out of the enlarger.

Place the strip of negatives into the carrier shiny side up and select the negative that you are going to print.

Put the carrier back into the enlarger and turn it on. You should be able to read the writing at the edge of the film when you turn the enlarger on and view the image on the baseboard. If it reads backwards the negative is in upside down.

Put your paper easel on the baseboard directly under the lens and adjust the blades to the paper size you are using. This holds the paper flat and stops it moving during exposure. The blades give white borders to the print that can make your prints look quite smart.

Move the enlarger head up and down until you have the desired size image for the paper being used.

Fine-tune the focus with a grain magnifier then turn the enlarger lamp off by switching it to timer mode, assuming it has one!

Set the lens aperture to f8 or f11 for best sharpness.

Select filter 2 or 2.5 and place into the filter drawer. This is a good starting point for normal contrast negatives.

You are now ready to do a test strip.

Exposure testing
Having cut your piece of paper into 2 inch strips take one and place on the easel in part of the image so that each of several steps will have light and dark areas, if possible. You will do about 4 to 6 steps on the strip of paper so roughly work out how big each step will be. In the example here we will use 4 equal steps.

Expose the whole strip for 10 seconds.

Take a piece of card (thick enough that light can’t penetrate!) and cover up about a quarter of the length of the strip. It’s best if the paper and card surfaces touch to avoid light piping around the edges and on to adjacent steps. Stop the paper moving as you slide the card over the top of it by sticking the strip down with BluTac or similar.

Expose for a further 10 seconds.

Cover up another quarter of the strip and so on for 4 exposures.

Process the test strip as described above.

There is an alternative test strip method which doubles the time for each step. This can be useful if you don’t have a clue what the required exposure time will be. The steps would then be 10, 20, 40 and 80 seconds in this example. Hopefully, you will quickly get the feel for the likely range of exposures and the simpler method described can be used most of the time. 

Note, you should avoid exposure times over 50 seconds or so as the papers rapidly lose sensitivity here. Open the aperture ring by one stop to halve the exposure times instead, for example, use f8 instead of f11.

Print Evaluation 
First you need to look for the first step that shows small areas with some black, not dark grey.

If you have steps where one is too light and the next too dark choose an intermediate value.

If in doubt do another exposure with smaller steps.

If needed as a final check, expose an entire strip at these settings before committing to a full sheet of paper.

Check the strip again for blacks across the area.

If the strip exposure still looks reasonable make a print on a full sheet of paper at this exposure with the same filter.

Now judge the overall image for exposure and contrast.

If there are large areas of white the contrast is too high and you need to reduce the grade.

If the print has lots of detail everywhere with little or no bright areas try increasing the contrast using a higher grade.

If you have too much black with no detail try reducing the exposure time.

Print judgement is something that comes with practice, but the more you print the easier it becomes. The only shortcut that I know of is to come on a darkroom printing course with me!

If all else fails with exposure and contrast changes affecting the whole print then local adjustment of the density and contrast are needed. This uses simple techniques called dodging and burning or a different basic technique like split-grade printing. But that’s for another article!

Photographs for Photokina on Latest Fibre Based Ilford Papers

Ilford Photo asked me if I could provide prints with my images on their 3 new fibre based Multigrade papers for Photokina. This is the worlds largest photo and imaging fair, held every 2 years in Cologne in Germany (Tuesday 16th to Sunday 21st September 2014). My prints will be the only prints on display to promote these new papers. It feels quite a privilege to be asked to both make the prints and use my images.

In June Ilford supplied a box of 50 sheets of each paper, the window mounts and the frames. I printed my photographs and mounted onto conservation card as usual and then finished the framing, all signed on the print and on the window mount as usual.

These were all printed on 24 x 20 inch paper with images of 56 x 46cm (sorry about the mixed units but the paper is supplied in inch sizes and the images were in metric narrow black aluminium frames of 80 x 60cm). From each box 1 sheet was cut into test strips and I used 4 or 5 sheets to make the print for Ilford and a couple of spares in case of any problems when it came to the print finishing (not needed as it happens, all was fine).

Photokina is now almost here so it's time to show the 3 pictures.

Here are the 3 photographs on the new Ilford Multigrade FB papers framed and hung on our gallery wall. All of the original photographs were taken on Mamiya 7 cameras with Ilford FP4 120 film developed in Ilford Ilfotec DDX film developer diluted 1+6 for 9.5 minutes.

Print details:
The prints were all developed in Ilford Multigrade developer at 1+4 dilution for 2.5 minutes, then the usual Ilford Ilfostop stop bath at 1+19, Ilford Hypam 1+4 fixer, water rinse, Ilford Washaid for 30 minutes then final wash.

All are split grade prints, the only technique to use for creative printing with Variable Contrast papers such as the Ilford Multigrade range. In my view single exposure prints and pre-flash are old-style techniques for graded papers.

My prints are realistic to what I saw at the time I pressed the shutter button. The small amount of manipulation that I use is purely to compensate for small areas of brightness and shadows that need help to be rendered realistically.

The Photokina set of prints

Ilford Multigrade FB Classic Glossy

Spanish Steps at Night, Rome

Taken in December 2013 at night after a rain shower cleared the steps of people. Taken with the 43mm lens and a 6 minute exposure at f16 which removed most of the people walking across the view, just the odd bit of ghosting!
Night shots work well on FB glossy and the new Classic seemed sharper and even easier to work with than MGIV FB, my usual paper.
Printing: main exposures 14.5s grade 1/2, 3s grade 5
minor tweaks: +15s grade 0 bright wall on right, +5s grade 0 top of fountain.

Ilford Multigrade FB Warmtone Glossy

Leadenhall Market in London at night. 

This is used as a covered footpath and is a busy arcade during the daytime and early evening, especially weekdays. Taken late evening on a Saturday in March 2011.
Warmtone paper is great for old architecture such as this. This was probably my favourite of the set, it looks great on the Warmtone paper.
Printing: main exposure 12.5s grade 1 with -3s to cobbles, 10s grade 5
minor tweaks: +10s grade 0 left hand roof bright area.

Ilford Multigrade FB Cooltone Glossy

Wolf Creek View, Colorado

Snow covered trees and the view to surrounding hills from the ski area in southern Colorado with the greatest snowfall in most winters (about 12m), January 2011. An orange filter was used to darken the deep blue sky.

Cooltone with its blue-blacks was chosen to match the cold snow and ice of the main subject.

Printing: main exposures 5.4s grade 1 with -1s bottom left and -1s peak, 7.8s grade 5

minor tweaks: +1.5s grade 0 bottom right

...and here it is in the dish being processed.

Photokina Prints for Ilford Photo Stand

Just printing one of my Ilford FP4 120 negatives on fantastic new Ilford Multigrade FB Cooltone glossy paper at 24 x 20 inches. We've chosen a Wolf Creek Colorado snow scene to show the paper off to best effect. 

It's for the Ilford Photo stand at Photokina in Cologne in September, the world's largest photo and imaging show.

Also making prints on new FB Warmtone and new FB Classic for the same show.

City Light Exhibition in Buxton

We have put up a new exhibition in the Art Cafe in Buxton Pavilion Gardens called City Light. It is mainly photographs from my recent book of the same name.

There are a total of 41 framed photographs, all taken on film and hand-printed by Dave Butcher on the finest darkroom paper available, Ilford Multigrade IV Fibre Based silver gelatin paper.

It runs Saturday 3rd May to Wednesday 9th July, 9.30am to 5pm, free unrestricted entry, just come and go as you please. You can also buy on the day and take away with you, no need to wait until the end of the exhibition. I will of course replace photographs as they sell.

In case you are unfamiliar with Buxton, Pavilion Gardens on St Johns Road, it is one of the main Victorian buildings and gardens in the town and is joined on to Buxton Opera House. It is very easy to find but to help you the postcode for Sat Navs is SK17 6BE!

There is a bit of logic to the hanging order, you may be pleased to hear. On the right at the top of the spiral staircase are 2 large boards with all of the England photos, including Buxton, Oxford, Cambridge and Newcastle as well as a complete board of London photos.

On the back wall there is limited hanging space so just room for 2 large photos of Edinburgh and Glasgow.

The wall facing you at the top of the spiral staircase has all the Europe photos in a long line of single photos and includes Rome, Venice, Paris, Berlin, Frankfurt, Oslo and Dublin. The last picture is Hong Kong to tie in with the large board at the end of that wall. Here there are photos of Sydney and Christchurch but mostly New York with one each from Chicago and Washington.

There are lots of night shots in the selection, in fact 26 of the 41 are dusk or night photographs.

Here are some photos taken after hanging the exhibition on Friday. There is a lot of glass, both for each framed photograph and in the building surrounding the pictures so I was unable to avoid reflections on all of the photographs. They look great when you stand in front of them though!

Europe photographs under the window

England photographs

USA, Australia, New Zealand and Scotland on the right

There are also quite a few of my local landscape photographs displayed downstairs in the Gallery in the Gardens, home of High Peak Artists, the local co-op of artists that runs the Gallery in the Gardens and Art Cafe.

Photography in Berlin

Last Day in Berlin. Best weather of our 3 days today, sunny with a few clouds. Still a few locations to photograph but I have lots already. I have taken over 25 rolls of 120 Ilford FP4, at 10 shots on a roll. I repeated some as the weather improved but there's still a lot of different views.

As there are so many rolls I will send them to the Ilford Lab for processing, otherwise it would take me the best part of a day to do myself in batches of 5.

It's not straightforward taking photos in Berlin as a large part of it is a building site. In one view near the cathedral I counted 21 tower cranes in the shot. I hate tower cranes! Normally I would just wait for dark and then continue, the cranes being hidden in the dark skies. Unfortunately, that doesn't help here, the construction companies advertise their names in neon lights on most of the cranes, so they can't be easily removed. I'm sure Berlin will be great when they finish it!

Off out to take more photos now.

Not looking forward to the early start Jan arranged for us, up at 4am!

New Old Enlarger for Large Format Negatives

I recently bought a new enlarger, well an old one actually, but it's new to me! It's a DeVere 504 with an Ilford MG500H head. It was a chance conversation before the show opened one day at Focus on Imaging at the NEC in March, with Mike McNamee, the Editor of Professional Imagemaker magazine, that started the ball rolling. It was his personal enlarger and he hadn't used it for years and wondered if it was any use to me. A bit of bargaining later Jan and I collected it from his house on the Wirral and it's now fully installed in my darkroom, as you can see from the photo (taken with Jan's Nikon D90).

The DeVere came with an old 500C keypad that doesn't have any memories so I switched it for the spare 500CPM keypad that I happened to have. This is what I'm used to using and having 9 memories makes all the difference when using split grade printing, as I do for every print that I make.

The 504 also has the advantage of baseboard focussing. My old Durst 138S doesn't have this and making big prints can be a bit of hassle getting the focus correct, I can't reach the focus knob next to the lens while looking down the grain magnifier on the baseboard.

The Durst is still a great enlarger though, I bought it from the ex-Ilford Head Printer Mike Walden 4 years after he retired from Ilford. He decided that 40 years working in the dark was long enough for anyone and sold all of his personal darkroom gear, mostly to me!

I'm still getting used to the DeVere. It is easier to use than the old one but I prefer the bigger baseboard and negative carrier on the Durst. The Durst chassis is much older than the DeVere but the head on the Durst is newer. They both work the same though.

That makes 2 enlargers with Ilford MG500 systems in my darkroom, as well as 3 Durst M670's. I either do 1-to-1 private courses or group courses for 2 people, so you have even more choice when it comes to enlargers. The MG500 heads print all negatives up to 5 x 4 inches in size. The M670's print negatives up to 7 x 6 cms.

Thank you Mike for your hospitality on collection and generosity. Hopefully it will now give many more years of use as I have no plans to switch to digital cameras from my Mamiya 7's anytime soon!

Winter Returns to the Peak District

After 2 days of snow and strong winds we ventured out into the local Peak District hills for a walk from our home in Tunstead Milton. The snow had stopped but the wind was still gusting up to 30mph. We turned back after about 3/4 mile. The snow drifts were well over 6 feet high and effectively impassable to walkers. We returned home for our snowshoes, normally reserved for use in the Alps or Rockies and just a few occasions in the Peaks.

Our snowshoes, MSR Lightning Ascents, were perfect for the conditions. Quick to put on and light and stable, even when crossing 8 foot high drifts on the tops. The main difficulty was in negotiating the stiles!

Taken by Dave Butcher on Samsung Galaxy S2 phone.

The strange thing was the lack of snow on the fields but big drifts on the roads and tracks as well as near fences and walls. The back roads around Combs village, near Chapel-en-le-Frith, were all blocked by lots of big drifts.

 Taken by Jan Butcher on Blackberry Curve phone.

Taken by Jan Butcher on Blackberry Curve phone.

In all we walked about 9 miles, it felt more like 15 because of the extra effort needed! 

Taken by Dave Butcher on Samsung Galaxy S2 phone.

I took a roll of Ilford FP4 120 film (10 negatives) with my Mamiya 7 camera and 65mm lens, all hand-held because I didn't want to carry the weight of a tripod as my back was aching before we started. Had to be careful not to put anything too close to the lens as I couldn't have much depth of field, I needed at least 1/60 sec exposure, with a dark yellow filter, to avoid camera shake.

Tomorrow I should have been running a private landscape photography course but we have rescheduled for 3 weeks time. It will take a while to clear the side roads.

If you can get out in the hills it's a good time for photos, especially black and white ones. Don't plan to use any side roads though as they may well be blocked by snow, even the A6 was blocked into Buxton for part of today.

More snow and cold temperatures are forecast for the rest of this week. 

Have fun!

Focus on Imaging Day 1

The first day of Focus on Imaging is over. My new City Light book was officially launched. We saw lots of old friends and met many new ones.

I took some photos on my mobile of the stand before the show started and expected to do this post shortly afterwards. We were busy from the start so just finding the time now at almost midnight.

Still 3 days to go. We are on the Ilford Photo stand C2 hall 9 at the Birmingham NEC. Discounts on books and courses. Ilford/Harman have big show discounts on film, paper and inkjet media if you can get down here. Also a new low priced pinhole camera, obscura, as well as the Titan pair of pinholes for 5x4 and 10 x 8 in.

There is even a full blown darkroom with a film processing machine, an enlarger and a paper processor.

Staying with good friends Peter and Sally and their family in Kenilworth. Lot more enjoyable than the normal NEC show!

City Light - Cities of the World and Buxton, New Book

I have just sent back what I think are the final edits to my new book, City Light - Cities of the World and Buxton.

It should go to the printers later this week and be ready for launch at Focus on Imaging at the Birmingham NEC from 3rd to 6th March.

Ilford Photo / Harman Technology have once again invited Jan and I to join them on their stand at the show, which is open to both trade and retail visitors. The stand number is C2 in Hall 9.

There are 31 cities and 123 images in 80 pages, as well as an article on city and night photography and technical data on every image. The cover price is £15 but there will be an introductory show offer for visitors for the 4 days of the Focus show.

Come to the show if you are able to and say hello and look at my new book. We can take cards and cash!

We will put it on the web site as soon as we can after it is printed and on Amazon Marketplace.

The photographs were taken over 22 years, hope you like them.

Focus on Imaging 2012

Focus on Imaging is over for another year. It was good to see so many friends old and new at the show. We hadn't exhibited for 2 years so it had been a while.

Ilford Photo / Harman Technology kindly invited us back on their stand for the 5th time in 7 years and gave us a lot of space to display photos and sell books and courses. We are very grateful to them for this generous support. They also printed my poster of show offers as well as generating QR bar codes for my web site. I hadn't even considered these as useful until this show. For example, I took a photo of the stand on my mobile phone which included the QR code as a small part of the picture. The phone immediately told me it had found and recognised the bar code to my web site link and would I like to click the link. It was very fast and more importantly it worked, going straight to my web site home page! I will use these at shows throughout the year to help customers look at my web site.

Jan took these 2 photos of the stand one morning before the show started. The QR code is on the end of the counter next to where I am standing.

This one shows my shot of St Paul's from Millennium Bridge London printed at 1 metre by 0.5 metres by Ilford Lab Direct from my negative scan.

The show was good for us, we sold lots of books and some courses.  The low price for books certainly made a difference but don't expect this all the time! We needed to make some space for the new book, City Light, which will be available from February 2013 and officially launched at Focus 2013.


We actually packed up and were away from the NEC by 6.20pm. Jan went for the car when the show finished and for some reason the security gates were open so Jan just drove straight through and up to the back door of the show. Couldn't have been easier. Home by 9pm, including a take-away! Last bit of the drive it was snowing.

Darkroom Day

It's a darkroom day today, as was yesterday. I'm trying to catch up on making the contact prints for the backlog of films from last years trip to Hong Kong, Sydney and New Zealand. There were well over 200 to print. Then I can decide which negatives to scan for the web and make prints from.

Just taking a short break as the print washer is full and I'm leaving them washing in warm water for a few minutes. Tap water is a bit too cold to efficiently wash photographic paper at this time of year in the Derbyshire.

I'm using up old Ilford Multigrade Warmtone paper for the contact prints (actual size prints of sheets of negatives in Kenro crystal clear filing pages). I seldom use it now and it's taking up storage space that I need for paper that I do use. For contacts I just need low contrast prints so old paper is fine for this. Having to cut larger sizes down to the 12 x 9.5 inches that I use for this. I have made up 20 x 16 inch dishes each with 5 litres of processing chemicals at 1+4 dilution to make sure I can do as many as I can. I need the images asap.

The films from the recent Colorado trip (seems a long time ago now but just a week since we returned) are being collected on Tuesday by Neil from the Ilford processing lab. He doesn't know yet but they are ready for him to take back with him. I don't like film processing, it's too repetitive for me and would take 2 or 3 days for the 62 rolls I currently have. Ilford Lab use the same developer that I do and a dip and dunk processing machine so negatives cannot be damaged by rollers or other transport system. The quality is excellent too.

Neil is actually coming here with some prints from their digital printing service, made from digital files of my scanned negs that I sent over a while back. Hoping that they will be able to take over making prints for me that are small (postcard size) and larger than the 60 x 50cm (24 x 20 inch) I can do in my darkroom, using their Lightjet system that takes a digital file of an image and prints onto traditional silver gelatine paper. They have a new digital paper that reputedly gives improved results over what are already good prints. We shall see!

Film Processing

After a couple of hours printing in the darkroom and a few odd jobs I found time to drive over to Harman Technology at Mobberley to drop off for processing my 96 rolls of Ilford FP4 from New Zealand plus another 3 rolls from before we left. Should have them back early next week. Look forward to seeing what I have from some important locations for me and my picture library.

Focus on Imaging is Over for Another Year

The big photo and imaging show Focus on Imaging, at the NEC Birmingham, is over for another year. We made it home by 8.30pm last night having gone down on Saturday to set up. This year we were back with our friends on the Harman Technology / Ilford Photo stand who kindly gave Jan and I space for a display of Lake District photos and to sell my books and courses. We also launched Lake Light, my third book, this time on the Lake District.

We saw lots of old friends and met many new ones but now it's back to ship a few web orders and go in the darkroom to print some photographs. I'm in the Gallery in Buxton tomorrow so will get some exercise walking the 12 miles there and back. Saturday it's up to the Lakes before running a 3 day course meeting up  Sunday evening then Monday to Wednesday photography. Fingers crossed for good weather!

Great day here in the Peak District, blue sky and white fluffy clouds but cold out of the sun, about 8C. I can still see small patches of snow on Combs Moss, the hill I can see out of the window from my desk.

Lake Light Published

Lake Light - The Lake District Photography of Dave Butcher is now available.

The printers delivered all 1500 copies this morning. Orders already received have been shipped. The official launch is at the Focus on Imaging show at the NEC Birmingham, the largest annual photography and imaging show in Europe. We go down tomorrow to set up. The show runs from Sunday to Wednesday. Jan and I are on the Ilford Photo side of the Harman Technology stand C2 (near the entrance to Hall 9). I will be doing 4 days of book signing and talking about my courses and the £1000 competition that I'm running with Harman and B+W Photography magazine (in the current March issue). Hope to see some of you there. Dave

Harman Ilford Film Processing Service

Just swapped emails with Steven Brierley, sales director of Harman Technology who make the Ilford black and white products.

They recently expanded the processing services they offer and now do 120 roll film through a high quality processing machine.

With about 100 rolls to process and at least 500 a year, this is good news. I hate processing film, it's not a creative step - I process every film in the same way, and it's veruy time consuming (about 45 minutes for every batch of 5 films).

Keeping fingers crossed they give me a good price and the quality is what I would produce.

Watch this space for my verdict on quality.
Dave Butcher