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thronobulax

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I maintain workbooks of 8x10 prints of stuff I like that I may later want to turn into larger wall hangings. These prints are not exhibition quality, but they give me a fairly close approximation of what I might someday do in the large. I didn't start doing this until the early 2000s, so I have been going back to "catch up" the workbooks from work prior to that.

Here are a couple I printed in the past several days. From Nov. 1997 taken in Zion National Park in the US. These were shot on 5x4 APX 100 on a Wisner Technical Field, and processed in PMK. Scans of the actual 8x10 silver prints:

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Very nice. Keeping work books is a great idea.
 
Nas said:
Very nice. Keeping work books is a great idea.
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Thanks! I started doing this when I realized that by only printing wall hanging sizes, I was self-editing down to a very small population of negatives due to the costs involved (not to mention dry mounting, etc.). By treating workbooks as serious printing activity, I saw a lot more of my negatives in print that both revealed gems I would have otherwise missed and served as strong feedback on what was- and was not delivering good outcomes in my work.

The workbooks also serve as a sort of photographic diary of my years of serious shooting. And, of course, the ability to scan the prints makes it easier to share with others as I have done here.

I indirectly got the idea of this, at least in part, from "The Daybooks Of Edward Weston".

Interestingly, when I started making 8x10s instead of 16x20s of everything I wanted, I began to realize that there is an intimacy from a smaller print that even the best negatives lose hanging on the wall in the large. So this whole business helped to sharpen my sensibilities of just what makes a good piece of photographic art. This really came into evidence when I started making serious prints from 35mm the past few years when I fell down the Leica rabbit hole and back down the Nikon hole ;)

I keep selected workbook printscans of the 8x10 silver prints I make from all formats, not just 5x4 here:

https://www.tundraware.com/Photography/Gallery/Silver/
 
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thronobulax said:
I indirectly got the idea of this, at least in part, from "The Daybooks Of Edward Weston".
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That's the first thing I thought of when I saw your mention of work books. Personally I much prefer small prints and the intimacy they bring when you hold them instead of having to stand back to take in a large print. Contact sheets are especially a favourite.
 
Nas said:
That's the first thing I thought of when I saw your mention of work books. Personally I much prefer small prints and the intimacy they bring when you hold them instead of having to stand back to take in a large print. Contact sheets are especially a favourite.
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You can see more in the link I just edited into post #5 above.
 
I should mention that, due to the aforementioned rabbit holing mentioned in post #5 above, I've not much posted here, though I read the site religiously.

Apparently, posting the images above brought me good karma. After looking high- and low for some months, I finally snagged an in-the-box NOS Kodak Focusing Clothe that I've wanted for its sheer nostalgia value.
 
thronobulax said:
You can see more in the link I just edited into post #5 above.
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Thanks for sharing. I've seen the picture from Oxford of the legs and the pigeon somewhere before but I can't remember where. Great shot.
 
Nas said:
Thanks for sharing. I've seen the picture from Oxford of the legs and the pigeon somewhere before but I can't remember where. Great shot.
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That was one of those, ahem ... 120 negatives ;)
 
The second image is really nice and I like the composition of the first image, but the blank sky spoils it a touch for me. I really don’t like blank white skies, though of course sometimes they just can’t be avoided as I guess was the case here.
 
Helen Summers said:
The second image is really nice and I like the composition of the first image, but the blank sky spoils it a touch for me. I really don’t like blank white skies, though of course sometimes they just can’t be avoided as I guess was the case here.
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I too prefer something other than a featureless sky. But, you get what you get. This was part of a 4 day workshop I attended and we shot whatever was there. We didn't see a cloud the whole time as I recall.

In retrospect, I might have tried to point the camera down a bit more to just keep the mountain top in frame, but my sense is that image would seem unbalanced that way.
 
No, the composition and exposure is very good, it’s just the sky, but as you say it was what it was.
 
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