Printing practice

I’m still trying to get a handle on making prints in the darkroom. It’s not easy. Last night I tried printing this image of a dandelion.

It was shot using the Hasselblad 500C/M, 80mm lens with an extension tube, handheld in a slight breeze. By some miracle the image was focused precisely a the edge of the flower and quite sharp. The problem was that it was underexposed a little. This meant that I had to crank up the contrast filter to get a good black, but that also muddied up the flower. I made a little dodge tool out of a piece of index card and dodged the flower and stem while giving the background an extra dose. The first time I dodged too large an area so the edge of the flower lacked contrast. After a few more tries I think I came pretty close.

It’s not a great photograph, but it’s one of the first that went from camera to print looking exactly as I originally intended. Felt good for a change.