If you’ve ever been frustrated with the clone stamp or the spot healing brush for removing dust and scratches from scanned film (both tools distort grain and destroy details), you may want to give this technique a try. This tutorial is optimized for black and white film, but it works well for color, too.

Some details will be hard to see if you watch the embedded version. This video was recorded and edited in HD, so if you click through, you’ll get the whole picture. Any feedback on this post is welcome, I haven’t done many of these and would like to know if they’re helpful.

I have been a fan of images printed on platinum and palladium for quite a while. A well done platinum image seems to float right off the paper; it’s some sort of magic having to do with the physical characteristics of the materials along with the slightly modified contrast (especially in highlights and mid-tones) that gives platinum images a very special look. As with most everything else photographic, you have to see the original prints, as reproductions tend to be a bit more flat and lose that 3-D effect.

Norwest Center, by Keith Taylor, platinum print, 2006.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to see as much original work on platinum as I’d like. It seems that most gallery shows I go to these days are all about BIG! COLOR! photos with very little new black and white work and only a tiny percentage of that being printed with platinum. Because of it’s dreamy and somewhat “old fashioned” look, it often appeals to sentimental types, and it’s not hard to find really overdone work in platinum as well. But there are a few contemporary artists who really nail it, and it’s exciting to see.

I bring this up because I am finally going to take the leap and start printing some of my own photographs in platinum/palladium. I am doing an independent study with Doug Schwab at Brooklyn College in the fall to learn how to make platinum/palladium prints from original 4×5 negatives as well as digital negatives from scanned medium format film.

I’m going to Sicily for a couple of weeks in June and I should be taking a lot of photos. I’m hoping to get started on a small addition to my darkroom for the necessary supplies and equipment when I get back, and after that, we’ll see what happens!

Links to a few contemporary photographers who are working in platinum and palladium:

Beth Dow
Keith Taylor
Craig Barber
Ronald Cowie
Alejandro López de Haro

Structure of Thought 6a and 6b, Mike and Doug Starn, courtesy 20×200.

20×200 released two bonus limited edition prints last month from Mike and Doug Starn as a benefit for Blind Spot. I was fortunate enough to be at my desk and online when both prints became available and managed to snag one of each.

The prints were sold separately, but the two images were conceived as a single, layered piece. Structure of Thought 6a is printed on a vellum paper and lays on top of Structure of Thought 6b. Both are interesting images in their own right, but the full effect of the layered combination is really beautiful. Unfortunately my photograph of the framed version doesn’t do it justice; I matted it with just a small amount of space between the two layers to allow light in. The translucent vellum is slightly rippled which creates shadows and distortions in the background. It’s a great piece.

As with any art that I’m really excited about, having a chance to experience this up close is really inspiring. The work takes on a dimensionality that doesn’t exist in standard prints. I don’t think that this particular method would work for my photographs, but the idea that a work on paper doesn’t have to be a simple flat object is intriguing and something I want to play around with.

Link: More information about this series on 20×200.

Can you tell that I can’t get enough of this place?

I was looking at this photograph yesterday when I made a connection between the photographs I am currently taking and an experience I had growing up. When I was young, I spent summers living with my great-grandmother in rural New Jersey. My grandma was a gloomy woman, and her house had suffered from years of neglect. I spent my days there practically alone, reading dusty books that hadn’t been off the shelf in ages, exploring the contents of her musty basement, and playing in the wildly overgrown back yard. Her house was literally being swallowed up by the earth.

I think these memories have been lurking in my subconscious since I was a kid, and are now coming out in the photographs I take. I kind of like the idea, anyway.

Everyone knows that the Colonel puts an addictive chemical in his chicken that makes you crave it fortnightly.

When you come across 20 packs of fresh Polaroid 600 for a mere $15 each, you buy that shit. I’m swimming around in it like Scrooge McDuck in a pile of gold.

Scanning and enlarging Polaroid photographs is fun. It’s been a long time since I did any color printing, too. I seem to have gotten the knack for it again.

This one is going to be for sale at the Brooklyn Indie Market tomorrow. How much should I charge for it?

Photograph by Dalton Rooney

Photograph by Dalton Rooney

I have a new crush, and it’s name is Polaroid SX-70.

That’s right, it’s prints! I spent all weekend cloistered in the apartment working on prints for next Saturday’s Brooklyn Indie Market spring re-opening. It’s been a lot of work so far, and I’m still going to try to print up at least 15 more unframed prints before the end of the week.

So, did I learn anything?

Well, printing this much in such a short time really tested my workflow, and I’m happy to report back that it held up pretty well. This is the first time that I’m printing many of these images, and I’ve had to do relatively few test prints to get exactly where I want to be. This is a testament to the amount of work I did this winter really nailing down my calibration, workflow, and printer profiling. I am going to go out on a limb here and say that they look really, really good.

The downside is that I tried to print a few color images (this one and this one, specifically) and was not really happy with the results. I think I have tweaked my workflow in favor of B&W at the expense of accurate color reproduction, which isn’t a bad trade-off for now. Someday I would like to dedicate some serious time to a color workflow, but I’m doing much more work in B&W at the moment.

So things will be quiet until after this weekend, as I finish up this print run and get ready for the sale. I may have one short tutorial coming up this week (not the printing tutorial, just a simple Photoshop video). In the meantime, please stop by and visit me at the Indie Market (at the corner of Smith and Union in Carroll Gardens) if you happen to be in the neighborhood on Saturday.

I don’t know if it’s the promise I made to myself to take more pictures or just the weather, but I made it to Prospect Park to take pictures twice last week, and even went to Central Park on Saturday. In general I think Central Park is too crowded and the landscape views are a bit claustrophobic. Of the three rolls of 120 I shot last week, the photos from Prospect Park are looking much better.

While on one of my walks through through the park, I decided to take a path I’d never seen before and discovered the secluded Vale of Cashmere. It’s hard for me to believe that I’ve been going to the park for seven years now and never discovered this beautiful area (see the photograph from the post below). It’s nestled high up on a hill above Grand Army Plaza, full of birds and squirrels and rabbits, and men hiding in the bushes (oh hey there!). I later learned of the Vale’s somewhat checkered past, known as a cruising and drug spot as well as the site of some anti-gay attacks and at least one murder.

I’m not entirely sure, but I think the perceived possibility of danger in the area makes it even more attractive to me. I will definitely be going back, although I’m wondering if going with a buddy might be a good idea.