Sunday for revenge.

Waking up in the morning and looking at Saturday's print... "I don't like it."
It's a back-to-back session, but I set up with the intention of deciding the outcome by noon.

This masking method really doesn't work well. It's hard to align under a safelight. A long time ago, when the "Fire Prevention" sign on a fire watchtower kept blowing out, I cut out a piece of photographic paper and burned it. That's about the only time I've ever succeeded with it.
Making "trim marks" like in printing to determine the position is also tedious and annoying, so I just did it straight. I only burned in the top and bottom a little. I have OHP sheets for inkjet printers, but I've never tried them.
In the end, these kinds of "tricky" methods create an overall sense of discomfort, so I don't really want to use them. When burning, the "human hand" is best. A human hand isn't linear, and above all, the edges are rounded, so the boundary between shadow and light is exquisite and nice. Though it does feel like my hand is getting sunburned.

The Zone System is a rational way of thinking that can also be applied to paper printing, but if you ask me, I don't think it applies to everything. Ansel Adams only took pictures of the great American outdoors (only) and (with the occasional portrait), and since it was only landscapes in natural light, it all became a format that suited his own needs.
During the day, if I'm unsure about exposure with large format, I just take one spot reading with an 18% gray card. If it's color, I spot meter the color I want to bring out the most, and the rest can be shot as it happens.
I do think that thinking based on the important "III" (where the texture of dark tones is expressed) of the Zone System is logical for making negatives for prints.
The dark black of the church above is aiming for "I" rather than "0" in terms of zones, but "0" would be fine too. LED light illumination is blown out at "X (10)," but I think that's fine. For previous still lifes, I aimed for a perfect black "0."
When doing long exposures (50 seconds in this case), existing spot meters don't have a long-exposure function, so I spot meter the "roof" with a tone of about "III" using a free smartphone app, and at night, I multiply by about 1.5 to 1.8 times. Since I'm using a Black Mist Filter, I think about 1.8 times is good. I think f/8 is fine for normal night shooting, but it was too dark to tell the focus, so I aligned it with a street light at about the middle distance and shot at f/22. With an exposure time of 50 seconds, even if people or cars pass in front of the camera, nothing shows up. Night photography is interesting. It's boring to always print the same kind of negatives.

Night photography involves negatives that are almost transparent, like the one above. The exposure time is also incredibly fast. The exposure time for Lucky and Fuji is roughly the same (2.5 seconds), but I stopped down the f-stop from 11 to 16.
I don't know if that was the effect, but the pointed part of the cross managed to show some color, so I decided this was okay. At 2.0 seconds, the black looks faded. It's quite difficult to decide in this split second. It's all because of the "transparent negative."

In the morning, I printed 5 sheets of this one shot. Of those, I tore up and disposed of the 2 test sheets with masks and the 2 from the previous day. I finished cleaning up at noon.
I usually clean the bath once a week, but today it's a back-to-back cleaning, so the bath is clean (lol).

I'd like to exhibit about 5 Japanese-style paintings and paper prints someday. Isn't there anywhere I can display them for free? Since I'm an artist of sorts, I'd like to avoid coffee shops. In the countryside, there are many places that are both a coffee shop and a gallery. I don't really like that. It feels like, pick one or the other. I guess customers wouldn't come otherwise...

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