The Great Border Fiasco
Now, I know what you're thinking. My obsession with borders was excessive. It was. I blame my stubbornness in using the same easel, which I later discovered was a little wonky, repeatedly trying to make a perfect 6 x 9 full-frame enlargement on an 8 x 10 sheet of photo paper. After switching easels, I got a nearly-perfect border in about 6 prints, so I should have done that a lot sooner.
Left image:
For the first 5 attempts, you'll notice that I had the film emulsion-side up instead of down, so that's why everything is backwards (as are a few of the prints in the centre photo). After realizing that I put the film in the enlarger incorrectly, I had already made 5 prints, but the borders weren't perfect so I had another opportunity to try again. I continued along with the same easel (the same one that I used for all of the prints in the centre image), yet I just could not get them straight. On another day in the lab, I used a different easel, and then I had a nearly-perfect print in about 6 attempts which was really nice. I feel bad, though, for using so much paper and not considering that the easel could be a little funky.
Centre image:
Like the previous image, I had the emulsion side of the film facing the wrong way in the enlarger, so the first few prints are backwards. I also chose to photograph a rather difficult scene because of such contrasting tones. While I tried to perfect the borders, I attempted to dodge the area with the garbage can and burn the area with the sky to balance the tones. This was definitely good practice, but for the life of me I could not get the borders correct. I should have tried different easels (it turns out that the cropping mechanisms were not quite square), but I convinced myself that I could achieve perfection with this easel. The easel defeated me, so I had to move on. Additionally, the exposures didn't quite show a clear difference in depth of field, so in the end the best move was to use some different shots.
Right Image:
After switching subjects for the depth-of-field assignment, I was determined to perfect the border-making process. I tried to locate the easel that I had used to complete my best zero-exposure print, but another student had gotten to it first. After I found another and calibrated it, it took far less attempts to get decent borders, but for some reason I struggled to get the contrast right. Also, I did not check the fix during this process, so that's why a lot of the images have a red hue. After swapping out the fix -very important to check it frequently, by the way- I got some satisfactory prints.
I really should have tried some different easels earlier in the process, especially since other students were getting better results much more quickly.
IMPORTANT: I would like to make it clear, though, that this did not at all sour my experience in this class. Even though I joke about how many sheets of photo paper I used, I really did enjoy the learning process.
They now call me the Border Man.
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