exposure technique

Heres a useful technique i hope to try out in the darkroom, since i find that i have a lot of problems with images having uneven exposure.

Printing details

A grade 3 print had this image been exposed onto a conventional film, and developed in a standard developer, I know the printing diagrams here would look more complicated than they are.

A straight proof print of the negative. The image is clearly out of balance, at least requiring some burning-in, or flashing of the sky.

Fogging the sky compressed the highlight tones, giving them a lovely mystiucal quality. It also covered up a film processing air bell in the upper-left of the sky.

I decided to fog the sky, rather than burn or flash it in. A fogging test-strip enabled me to calculate, rather than guess, the right fogging exposure time.

I confined the bleaching work to the tree trunk. I wanted this to stand out clearly, but not too obtrusive, against the darker fogged-in sky.

The final print was made on Multigrade FB matt, with an old diffuser enlarger and under-the-lens VC filters.