Color Film, Black and White Paper

Digression: I have attempted to make this post cover a relatively complicated process, while still making it available to people who have never been in a darkroom.

Making a black and white silver print with color film. If you look at forum and blog posts in the rather hypocritical internet-film world, it is nearly impossible to do. Well, unless you want a low contrast print or have a panchromatic paper which is much more difficult to attain and use. The issue behind this is that silver gelatin paper is very resilient to warm light, and intentionally so. This is because the safelight is red/orange, and the paper would be exposed if it weren't designed for this process.

I have only just started printing color film on black and white paper, and it doesn't represent the scene as accurately as black and white film. But who said accuracy is the intention? Below is a print you have most definitely seen before if you follow my work. It was shot on cheap, expired 400 speed Fuji Superia color film. I had it developed at a lab, then printed it myself on Ilford Glossy Fiber-Based paper with a high contrast filter (4.5). Not bad, eh?

Here you see an un-altered scan of the color negative next to a desaturated version. Kinda nasty, huh?

Now is a comparison of the print and the scan's blue channel. 

For those who don't know, the blue channel in Photoshop is one of three black and white images the program combines to choose the tones and colors of a color image (RGB). That is for another post on another blog, but essentially this is the equivalent of placing a blue filter in front of a camera shooting black and white film. Notice how in both the silver print and the blue channel the warm tones in the gravel have been darkened a great deal.

Though this image was shot and printed well before I saw Eric Erlenbusch's Death Valley Photos, seeing these was one of the reasons I've decided to continue this process. His concept is very similar in that the images are shot on color film and converted to black and white. Rather than letting the film and camera do the 'conversion' to grey-scale, we've both decided to utilize the colors on the film to give us choices in processing on what tones (lightness/darkness) are created by different hues (colors). The difference comes in that he is using Lightroom and I am using Dark Room.

As I said this print was the first in a long ordeal I see myself pursuing. I currently have a roll processing with images intended to directly compare the way different colors are affected. In the future I also hope to analyze the effects of actual color filters, as well as pushing the color film to eliminate necessity for a high contrast filter.

Thanks for reading, I appreciate any feedback from all perspectives!