I made another trip to the Isle of Skye at the end of 2022 and came back with a handful of exposed rolls of Ilford FP4 film. I have been going through negatives slowly and making prints in the darkroom. It’s been a while since I last made a post here, I thought it might be as a good a reason as any to share some of my most recent images!
I made the point of not visiting the postcard places (and lets be honest if you have not, you probably should really do that at least once) and tried to capture more than the usual images of the Fairy Pools, Storr etc that dominate social media feeds.
I am still using Ilford Warmtone fibre base paper as my main paper of choice although I have been printing more and more with Foma and Bergger papers which I am really enjoying. Warmtone papers respond more enthusiastically to chemical toners compared to neutral/cooler papers.
The prints are finished using gold and selenium split toning which is wonderful; the gold gives a real beautiful cold, blue starkness to the highlights which in contrast to the selenium toner that warms up the darker, shadow areas of the prints.
This combination gives a real three dimensional depth to the images which unfortunately is hard to communicate fully when digitised. It has to be said I really love gold toning and it’s slowly but surely becoming a staple in my process, if only it were cheaper!
Be sure to check out my gallery for more images.
J.