LOOKING BACK 12

Rice Barton Foundry, Worcester, MA 2004

I made this image during my last visit to the foundry. The wrecking ball was literally swinging away while I was shooting. Even with the end of the building torn away, it is still dark in the interior because of the old foundry's blackening soot/dust that coats everything. To get a little technical here, from the darkest areas to the white clouds in the sky is a tremendous range for any film. I shot this with Tri-X Pan Profession in 6x7 format with my Pentax 67 fitted with a 45mm Pentax lens. I have for years used a Pentax Digital Spot Meter when shooting B&W, and I remember that I could get no reading -- meter indicated "0" -- and the white clouds reading about 16-17. This image will print just about like you see it above with a #2 filter setting on Ilford Multigrade IV Fb. I rated the film at EI 50, and processed it in Kodak Technodol (one packet diluted with 16 oz of water) for 21 minutes, 70F, with continuous rotation on my JOBO processor. It is an amazing film/developer development combination that I came across back in the mid-80's when I was an assistant at the Oliver Gagliani workshops in Virginia City. Technodol has been discontinued by Kodak, but I have a stockpile of the stuff. It's not a technique that I use often, but in situation where the luminance scale is so far outside the limits of film processed normally, it works. 'Nuf said...