Made on Kodak Tmax 400, rated at 200 ASA and developed in Thornton 2 Bath developer (5 + 5)
Rolleiflex 2.8E (Planar)

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Same idea, same roll.
In "representational" photography, I feel that two things are very important: that the gray values carry the bulk of the photographs tactile characteristics, and that preserving a sense of the light quality is extremely important. It's not always easy (or obvious) to achieve both of these things in such a way that they deliver a "believable" photograph. I'd like to think that these qualities are generally present in my work.
Case in point is this photograph, made with the Rolleiflex 2.8E (Planar) on Ilford's exceptionally good FP4+ film. I exposed this roll at 50 ASA, so it received more than one stop more exposure than "box speed", and developed it in Barry Thornton's 2-Bath developer, which is a variation on Divided D-23. This develop never fails to give me exceptionally good negatives that contain loads of usable information, and the images have a smoothness that typically exceed my expectations. The grain structure is always pleasing and there's plenty of sharpness where it's wanted. In many ways, this is the perfect developer.
It's funny, I experimented with Divided D-23 back in 1984/5 and found it gave outstanding negatives, and yet I never used it again, until 2 years ago (in the form of the Thornton modification). Now, it's one of the most appreciated tools in my darkroom.
You can read more about the Thornton developer at onlinedarkroom.blogspot.com/p/barry-thornton-articles.html

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