Rosa 'Westerland' 7 July 2025

I have a friend who often tells how fortunate we were in having been born in that past century.

Photographically I no longer miss those long nights in my Kerrisdale darkroom. Ventilation was poor but I did enjoy printing my good negatives. It is a miracle that I am alive as I used a known carcinogen lots. It was called Kodak Selenium Toner.

Now in my Kitsilano oficina I work in daylight with no fumes. Often one of my two cats climb up on a chair next to mine and sleep while I write my blogs, scan my plants, photographs, negatives and slides. Few of my peers pay attention when I tell them that a well scanned negative which I will then print as an inkjet will have a lot more shadow detail than a darkroom print.

In short using the best of the 20^th century (film perhaps?) and combining it with the best of this century (my Epson P700 Scanner and my Epson P700 Inkjet Printer) provides me with lots of pleasure.

As an example today I cut a large raceme of Rosa ‘Westerland’ (which in my opinion smells like synthetic apricot jam) and printed it. Minutes after I printed it I took a picture of the setup with my Fuji X-E3.

Voilà!