Black and White photography

Once the images have been selected from the contact sheet, the chosen negative can then be placed in the negative carraige on the enlarger head. Repeat the process of adjusting the enlarger to get the size you want, place the photographic paper beneath it and do a test strip.

Test Strip

Once the desired amount of exposure has been settled upon, the photographic paper can then be exposed fully.

Test strip- under exposed and unfocused

Slightly over exposed

The right amount of exposure. The image is crisp and detailed.

Very over exposed

Adding a neat frame on the photograph

You can add the neat frame by using the frame on the enlarger, or have a blurry frame by not using one. Both results can work well, depending on the subject matter.

You can also play around when exposing the film. Try double exposure to get this effect:

Double exposure

 Or using a negative as a photogram to get this effect:

Negtive overlayed onto photographic paper during exposure

Dodging and burning is when you balance the dark/light ratio with hands on manipulation. Dodging = decreasing exposure fore areas that you wish to be lighter. Burning = increasing exposure on areas you wish to be darker. Tools can be made from wire, card or even your own finger. This is an example of dodging with my finger:

Dodging by finger

 Or, you could also try collaging by placing photos on top of each other:

Making a contact sheet

A contact sheet is a positive print of all the negative images from one film, made by a contact printing process. This is particularly helpful in the early stages of deciding what images to enlarge and work with.

First, set up the enlarger and then take it down two stops so the reading should be f8 or f5.6. Using the safety light, adjust the enlarger head so that the surface of the photographic paper is covered.

Negtive Strip

The negatives should be clean, dry and cut into strips of four.
Place the photographic paper emulsion side up on the baseboard.

Remove the safety light and set the timer to 10-12 seconds. It is a good idea to do a test strip first to get an idea of the amount of exposure needed. Simply do this by covering sections of the paper then increasing exposure in increments of 4 seconds or thereabouts.

Test Strip #1

Test Strip #2

Put the exposed paper through the developer machine.

Contact sheet

                                                                    

From the contact sheet, you can now choose what images work well, then enlarge them to make a photograh.