Student Portrait Session on the Intrepid 8x10: Capture, Develop, and Contact Print + Platinum Bonus!

I have been working on a series of photographic portraits of students and other members of the De Anza College community. Recently, I photographed Aahana, whom I did not know prior to this photoshoot; my friend Ivie just saw her walking around campus and asked if she wanted to have her photo taken. I thought it would be a nice opportunity to show how I construct a set and direct a subject who I've never met before. I've also noticed a number of comments requesting to see me making a silver gelatin print, so I included some footage here (you can also expect a more in-depth video on the silver gelatin printing process coming to this channel in the near future). I also made a couple of platinum prints using the negatives from this photoshoot; those are shown here as well.
This video references two other videos from my channel that you may find to be of interest:
How to Develop Black and White Film: • How to Develop Black a...
Making a Platinum Print: • Making a Platinum Prin...
00:00 Intro
00:54 Flash Meter
01:08 Focusing
01:20 Posing
02:04 Taking the Picture
02:43 A Few More With the 4x5 Camera
03:37 Development
05:45 Negative Evaluation
06:09 Making a Contact Print
08:03 A Couple Platinum Prints
08:25 The Final Prints

[@Capturethelightraw]

She was perfect for this video i love her natural laugh very beautiful pictures

[@_stefkas_]

Basic, straight, I love it ! Thanks for recording the interaction with the person in front of the camera while taking the image - this is an important part!

[@williamshakespeare9815]

Those are beautiful shots! The texture of the paper adds to the picture.

[@silverandplatinum]

Thanks so much! The paper for these platinum prints is Hahnemuhle Platinum Rag. The other paper I sometimes use is Bergger COT-320, which is slightly warmer but behaves similarly otherwise

[@chriscard6544]

why do you set your aperture at F/45 ?

[@silverandplatinum]

Good question. The fastest this lens fires is 1/125. We’re in the shade, so at that speed, ambient light would be f/8 or so. I need the strobe to be significantly more powerful so that the camera captures the flash, not the ambient. The other nice side benefit is that the deeper depth of field gives the subject a little more freedom to move around without worrying that she’ll end up out of focus. The major disadvantage is that you can see the wrinkles on the backdrop a bit, but that wasn’t a huge concern for me with this particular portrait.

[@chriscard6544]

@@silverandplatinum thank you. Very interesting

[@dorozina]

To get some DOF? With 8x10 "sensor" you have 0.13 crop factor ;-) So in terms of DOF your f/45 will convert into something like f/6.3 on 35mm camera ;)