When making a composition you should consider the position of important aspects of your photo.

First I would never put the horizon in the center of the picture, but position it above or below the middle for more tension. For instance to stress the impressive clouds coming with an approaching thunderstorm or to give more attention to wide countryside.

Next position the most important subjects of the photo near the circles. Place the person or a building in the lower and left corner.

Important: Don’t use every circle, keep at least one circle free.

Tags: Taking Pictures

Photography of landscapes covered with snow is difficult. However you have some tricks to your disposal.

The problem is you can’t use the same trick in every situation. The best solution for making a proper photo depends on the circumstances e.g. bright sun versus overcast skies, a lot of other details with important texture, large patches of smooth snow reflecting the light (additional light source).

In general you are in trouble because of the light metering of your camera. The light meter assumes average light conditions. In addition the white balance setting can have a significant impact on the result.

The camera meter compares the light values it receives with average grey. The most dominant light value will be average grey, the other light values will be relative to the average grey. As a result a large white snow patch in the photo will be shown grey.

The first solution is overexposure of the photo. Set the camera to overexposure with one or two stops. This works sometimes, but the risk is overexposure. You get loss of detail and blown-out snow.

The second decent option is to find an average “grey” subject and use it for spot metering e.g. use the road. Keep this metering result and take your picture.

Tags: Snow, Exposure, Spot Metering

We are going to discuss processing the Kodak Tri-X 400 negative film. You will find basic instructions on the package of each B/W film, but you can play with the processing fluids and development times to get different results.

The objective of the instruction is establishing a procedure which can be reproduced and gives predictable results. Afterwards you can play with the time to achieve different effects e.g. more or less grainy negatives.

Each step should be executed immediately.

Fluids

We will be using the following processing fluids:

• For film development use Kodak D76
• For stopping the processing use Amaloco s10
• For fixating the result use Amaloco X88

Developing

Prepare the fluids. Take 125 ml of the fluid and add 125 ml of water. The water should be 20 degrees Celsius.

Go into the darkroom with the lights completely off. Next take the film from the container and put the film into the Paterson development tank. Close the tank and pour the fluid into the container.

Immediately turn the container in a smooth and controlled manner. Remember no violent shaking. Next you should follow the schedule during the 11 minutes:

• During the first minute you need to turn the container every 15 seconds
• During the next 10 minutes you should turn the container every 30 seconds

After 11 minutes empty the container.

Stopping

Next take 250 ml of the Amaloco S10 prepared fluid and pour the fluid into the container. Don’t take too much time as the remainder of the developing fluid will continue it’s work.

Turn the container every 15 seconds. Stopping the development is achieved after 1 minute.

Pour the fluid from the container.

Fixation

Take 100 ml of the fluid, add 400 ml water. The 500 ml is sufficient for the fixation of approximately 6 negative films.

Add 250 ml of the fluid and process the film during 5 minutes. Turn the container every 15 seconds.

Rinsing

Get the remainder of the processing fluids of the film by rinsing the film. Use water of 20 degrees Celsius during 8 minutes.

Finally use Amaloco finishing fluid to complete the processing.

Tags: Kodak, Negative, Amaloco