tsunami aftermath

A railway bridge in Miyagi Prefecture six weeks after it was badly damaged by the monster tsunami that struck Japan’s east coast on March 11, 2011. On my fifth visit to Tohoku in as many weeks, I decided to take my bike and spend a week cycling down the tsunami coast from Kesennuma to Minami-Soma and then inland to Fukushima city. I came across this scene on my first day. The actual railway track can be seen on the ground in the right of the picture.

These three prints, all from the same 35mm negative, illustrate the different effects and hues to be had from basic darkroom printing. The image at the top was overexposed on Oriental Seagull VC-FBII paper with split-filter diffusion. The print was then bleached out and given a selenium wash. The centre image is a lith print on Argentone Polywarm FB, an excellent paper for lith printing that offers drab green through to rich orange-sepia tones. Unfortunately, like so many other papers, it is now discontinued, although expired stock can be found. The soft blue in the whites is due to a crappy scan. The bottom image is also a lith print, but this time on Oriental VC-FBII, a paper not recommended for lith printing. Even with a fresh batch of developer, the image suffers serious “blotching” and  can take up to 30 minutes to develop. This one was toned in selenium. Click on images to enlarge.