I took this at the zoo. The sea lion was playing with the kids and they were reaching and jumping begging it for attention. Just after I took this picture, the sea lion playfully snapped at the kids through the plexiglass, and they all happily screamed. I hope the picture makes you smile.
My grandpa gave me an olympus om-2n, and a family friend was offloading his entire darkroom, so I ended up with all the stuff for free. Since then I've been blundering my way along, and after a year or so I feel like I'm starting to get some control. I'm not normally an artistic person, but I really enjoy how methodical you need to be with the analog process. If you enjoy this, I will post a few more. I had a manic episode a couple months ago, and produced some pictures that I think are ok.
I feel really grateful to receive all the gear from people. I get a lot of satisfaction from putting all kinds of old tools back to work.
I'm using HP5+ and ilford multigrade pearl paper right now. I believe this shot was pushed to 800 asa, which I was doing a lot at the time as I often struggled with finding enough light in the winter/spring. I was using Arista EDU for a while because it's cheap. I don't think it's as tolerant of pushing in terms of grain size, but I bet a lot of that was due to I experience on my part.
Yes, turning trash to treasure is one of my hobbies too. Nice work on getting this tricky backlit shot! I'm a fan of the film grain look. Have you experimented with ilford's fiber paper? This would also look interesting as a cyanotype.
I haven't tried fiber paper yet, mostly because $$$, and I feel like I'm not at the point where I'm satisfied enough with my prints to make any "archival" yet.
I do love cyanotypes. I've done them with digital pictures before by getting transparencies from Kinkos and then using a UV lamp to burn them onto the emulsion. I'm not sure how I'd get there from a 35mm negative though. I have a negative scanner, but its very low quality and puts a nasty gradient on one side of everything, so I only use it for digitizing old family slides.
Is it possible to contact print a cyanotype off an enlarged darkroom print?
I feel you, photography is so expensive!! To make a cyanotype from a negative you can still use an enlarger, but you have to switch out the bulb for a cold uv one. I thought this print would look really nice as a cyanotype. It's also easier to dodge/burn with a cyanotype because the exposures are so much longer. I don't know if it's possible to contact print off of another print, but I would guess not because the rc paper is pretty thick.