Actually a couple of rookie mistakes. When I was shooting down in Big Valley at the beginning of June for the Beer Parlor project I tried a new technique. I chose to use Kodak T-Max 400 large format 4x5 sheet film, but pushed it from it's normal speed of 400 iso to 1600 iso. This is effectively underexposing by two stops, which is then compensated for by extending development time. It was a mistake to attempt this without a little more advance practice. It was also a mistake to not take any backup shots on other films. Two of the shots turned out pretty well, but I made a third mistake on the two that were really important to me. These were the group portrait of the train robbers. I made a rookie mistake and misread the aperture setting on my Schneider G-Claron 210mm lens, and further underexposed the film by an additional 1 to 1-1/2 stops. This might have been OK, had I realized it and compensated with even more development, but sadly I did not realize the error until after the film had been processed.
The portrait is somewhat underexposed and there is virtually no detail in the shadow areas. Judging by the scan, this yields a very dark and moody image. That is kind of fitting of the subject, and would be OK, if I can nurse a darkroom print this good out of the negative. Time will tell....!
The one thing about making mistakes is that I learn from them, and as stupid as I can be at times, I rarely make the same mistake twice. Chalk this one up as a learning experience.
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