I was very upset the other day when I went into my files of countries and cities and I could not find Spain. I looked and looked. Then I went to our family files that are dated by years. And that is where I found France/Spain 1985.

My Rosemary was an adventurous traveller and somehow we went to Spain and France with our two daughters. We flew to Paris. From Paris we flew to Madrid and we rented a car and drove all the way to Málaga.

In that huge file where I may have 150 slides and b+w negatives (taken with Kodak b+w Infrared film there were many prints. The one in this blog was at the Alhambra in Seville. Just because of my curiousity (generated by my idleness) I decided to compare a scan of the print with a scan of the negative using my Epson V700 Scanner.

I am unable to convince all those younger persons obsessed with what they call analog photography to the merits of shooting film, yes shooting film, but not making darkroom prints. We old photographers well knew the limitations of the darkroom to coax out from negatives and slide the details that were always there. The enlarger, photographic paper combination had its limits. I would use my colour head enlarger and partially project on my paper with the head in yellow (for some shadow detail) and then I would switch to magenta to get some contrast. To do this I would use Ilford Multigrade paper that we well knew was not archival. Note the yellow spot on the scanned print.

Once I scan a negative I use a 22 year old Photoshop 8 that does not invent shadow detail. The detail is there and  can bring it out. Then when I print the scan with my Epson P700 I get a result that surpasses the darkroom print. There is nothing artificial in the result. It is simply the way it has always been but the negative had to face the limitations of that “analog” darkroom.