The Lake Is A Lie

Here's a lovely little image taken from a rocky beach along the shore of Lake Erie that I had such high hopes for. It had been a bland day up to shortly before this image was taken, the textureless overcast of morning having gradually given way to a cloudless blue above without even that brief transitional play of cloud and light to provide visual interest to anything above the horizon line. It was only by virtue of a long standing inability to learn when to give up that I was still out there at all when a lucky cloud bank rolled in, providing about a half hour or so the conditions I'd been wanting for all day. In that time I fired off the remaining half of the roll I had been working with all day to that point and made a fair start on another. The entire day of wandering aimlessly with a camera had been worth it after all.

Or so I had every reason to believe up until the moment, later that evening, when I pulled the roll off the developing reel in order to hang it to dry. It was only then that I learned the sad truth, a truth that means, lovely as this image may seem at first glance, it will never see the light of... well, an enlarger lamp. Things are not as they appear here.

You see friends, the lake is a lie. What you see is the result of a not particularly meticulous Photoshop rescue of a painfully ruined image, unrescuable by standard analog means. Worse, it is the result of problem that affected exactly those images that were taken during that half hour I thought had been the day's salvation.

Here is the photograph I actually took...

The culprit... a piece of plastic film that formed part of the light trap for the dark slide slot of the film magazine. I would assume that on inserting the dark slide I had pushed it loose so that it jutted into the image area, where it appeared on all subsequent exposures until I discovered the problem. Not wanting this to be a total loss I spent about a half hour fooling around with the rubber stamp tool, magic healing brush and the like until I convinced myself I had something passable enough for the casual once over the image would get when posted online. Knowing the truth of the matter though I don't imagine you'll have much trouble spotting the flaws. I haven't had the heart to tackle several other hoped for masterpieces that were similarly ruined.

Once the problem was known I was able to take the film magazine into the darkroom and by feel find and extract the offending piece of plastic without even having to sacrifice the remaining exposures on the film which all came out fine (though honestly I just blew off the rest of the remaining frames on some so so images for fear that, if there were light leaks, I'd care about the images that were wrecked). Despite the damage the light trap has never the less performed adequately since with no hint of darkening along the edge of the two rolls that have gone through since. I was fortunate that a quick search turned up a fellow who sells complete light trap kits online, not just the foam but the little Mylar bit that came loose in my case. It arrived the other day but will have to wait until the next roll is through to be installed. If I hadn't found that neat solution I also found a DIY alternative suggested in a few online forums involving cutting a substitute plastic film literally out of film using the exposed and developed leader end from a 35mm roll, the part that usually gets cut off and tossed once the film is dry. It's a good idea to file away for the future - there's no guarantee ordering one will be so simple next time I need to redo the light trap. 

Arguably if I spent more time on this I could get a nearly flawless image, indistinguishable for all intents and purposes from what I would have come away with if that little piece of plastic hadn't come loose in the first place. I've spent far less time on this, after all, than I would normally invest making a decent darkroom print from a good negative. In theory a digital negative could then be made and contact printed in the darkroom yielding a traditional silver print. Don't look for it to happen though. It's not that I'm some some sort of purist, I have no principled objections. I just don't see myself ever having the motivation. There's plenty of other good images I could be printing. Why fake the lake?

The good news? That concrete drain looks like it's been there for a while. It will probably be there just the same when I go back, film magazine intact this time.