Robbie Becklund Photography

I recently bought a new lens for my enlarger, a Rodenstock 80mm. I'm hoping it will help me get a little more detail out of my negatives, I feel they'are lacking something.

I've been making my contact sheets of my 2 1/4 negatives on Kodak AZO silver chloride paper. For those not in the know, this is the best photo paper made, and of course it's just barely being made by Kodak.

Anyway, I endlessly pore over my contact sheets to see if there is some gem I'm missing. Of course, this is a necessity, but for me this is somewhat dangerous. The more I look at them, the more I'm falling back in love with contact printing on AZO paper--meaning getting a large format camera! Well, I'm holding off--I'm trying to be strong. I really hope that the new enlarger lens will give me the prints I want and that I see in the contact prints.

That is precisely the problem--*what I see in the contact sheet*, while it is small, it looks great. I suppose what I should be doing is making my contact sheet on crappy RC paper instead of AZO. AZO paper has such a beautiful long tonal range. It's very rich paper.

I hope I get over this, because I really like shooting medium format. There's good detail, and the camera's are simple (at least mine) with excellent lenses, and I love being able to shoot the shots I want and knowing it's not costing a lot. And I'm now printing on multi-grade paper with its half steps in grades 0 to 5. AZO only comes in grade 2 and 3.

I've thought if I really feel I must get a view camera to quench my AZO thirst, I'll just get a 4x5. 4x5 sized prints on AZO are very nice. Well, we'll see...

Grand Marais, MN breakwall
I just listed this one on ebay!



Grand Marais, MN south breakwall



Lake Superior shoreline north of Grand Marais

These were all taken last weekend.

I just stocked up my eBay Store. I'll be printing some new pictures from Grand Marais tonight, so I should have some new images here tomorrow.

Just thinking about Grand Marais, MN and some of the interesting things about it.

We went to the Ben Franklin store, which I love. They have lumberjack clothes, wool shirts and pants a half inch think. Great Pendelton shirts. I remember about 10 years ago buying some 60s pants that were in the original package and had the original price. Well they still have a few pair on the top rack. It still blows my mind that no one has bought them. I understand that they are high up on the shelf, but collector types now to look high and low. I thought about buying them to sell on ebay, but I didn't.

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Is it me or do all kids have to make noise/sounds/talk constantly unless they are sleeping/eating/playing nintendo/watching cartoons. My son and I are standing at the shore of the harbor in Grand Marais. I'm listening to and watching the water lapping on the shore and pondering the chunks of ice wallowing in the water, thinking they look like crushed ice in a drink and wondering if they are freezing or thawing, when my son finds some ice of his own--how can someone make such a racket. I calmly asked him if he had to make noise constantly. He stopped for 30 seconds and wandered back to the ice and started thrashing again. I think at that point I wanted to leave my ice/water pondering meditation, but I think I stood and stared for awhile longer, trying to remind myself that, well you know, he is seven. I tried to cut him some slack.

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I remember when I was a small kid, walking in the snow and stepping over the phone lines because the snow was so deep. This was up the Gunflint Trail at Devil's Track Lake. I don't know if I actually remember this happening or if it was told to me so many times when I was young that it became part of my memory.

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A few years back I was camping on an island in Greenwood Lake in the Superior National Forest. It was very cool having our own island--but a little creepy that we had our own squirrel too. Of course we made a fire for coffee, cooking and atmosphere. Being responsible I put it out at night. In the morning we awoke to find that the embers of the fire had tunneled underground in the peat moss, almost under our tent. Luckily we noticed the extent of the fire because we were leaving that morning. It took a lot of water to put it out. I'm glad that one of my memories of the north shore wasn't about burning down an island.

I was just thinking about the way people react to weather, mainly cold. How can you not think about that in Northern Minnesota. In central Texas 30 degrees is freezing cold and people think the end of the world is at hand when it gets that cold. It was 30 degrees yesterday in Grand Marais and I saw three people wearing flip-flops. Also, along Lake Superior I saw many people fishing and some tooling around in boats and it was about 25 degrees. The building in the below photo, Lake Superior Ruins is covered with ice now and two different times I saw someone sitting on it fishing. Each time I was mad because I wanted to photograph it with the ice and get detail shots of the old wood.

Just got back from three days up in Grand Marais, MN. A little bit colder than Minneapolis, but pretty nice except for some strong winds. Along the breakwall in Grand Marais there were some pretty nice ice formations. Yesterday the wind was howling off Lake Superior and waves were crashing over the breakwall. I went up on the breakwall and got a few shots. What a spectacle, the rolling waves crashing over the breakwall and layers of ice on everything.

Lots of snow up on the Gunflint Trail, away from Superior. And of course all the lakes except Superior were frozen solid.

Went out on the breakwall at Two Harbors to the lighthouse. It was quite a chilly walk--very windy and a few sheets of ice covering the walkway to make it a little more exciting. I've driven through Two Harbors at least a hundred times and have never stopped at the harbor. It's pretty nice and my son liked it. We'll have to stop again this summer. Also, I took my son up to Grand Portage and showed him around a bit. He's real interested to go to Isle Royale this summer, it's a group of islands in Lake Superior--officially in Michigan. I've been there three times, quite an amazing place.

I'll be developing film the next couple of days and get some of the new shots posted later this week an some on ebay.

I'm excited to actually shoot, develop and print some photos all in the same week. It's maybe been two years since that's happened. I always have such a backlog of film. This film will go to the head of the line though.

Lake Superior Ruins

I'll be going up to Grand Marais this weekend for a few days and plan to do lots of shooting. I just checked the harbor cam and it looks a little snowy--big surprise. I'm wondering how much snow will be up the gunflint trail. I've seen hip deep snow and foot thick ice in the spring. I just hope it doesn't snow a bunch. I'm done with winter and enjoying driving on dry, un-icy and un-snowy roads.

I've had a decent amount of sales and a good amount of traffic on my website. It seems the combination of the website, this blog and ebay are starting to work. Persistence. slog slog, trudge trudge. Oh yes that's what I'll also be doing in the woods this weekend. I hope my son doesn't just want to sit in the room and watch cable TV.

I've been contemplating doing a series called "1/1", where I sell only one print from a negative and deface the negative and give it to the person buying the photo. I would keep an artist's proof for myself for my own documentation. This isn't a new idea, I know other's have done this, but I don't know who. I get jealous of artists who make something and go on to the next thing. I like the idea of having only one of something.

I'll start doing this in the very near future. These will be listed on ebay, I'll include 1/1 in the listing, or something equally brilliant.

I added two new pages. One about my holga cameras and the modifications I've done to them and a page about my pictures.

woohoo, I got a bid on one of my 99 centers! I was worried I might have started them too high.

Now that I'm fully immersed in B&W printing again I see there are a few crucial items I need. If anyone has any of the following gathering dust, please send them to me: grain focuser, 16x20 or larger dry mount press, metronome, and a 16x20 print easel. I'm slowly accumulating this items. The problem with the drymount press is they are so heavy that shipping is killer. But then again, they are super expensive brand new so adding $50 for shipping on an ebay purchase wouldn't be too bad.

More printing tonight, maybe a couple new things and some old holga pictures that I haven't printed with an enlarger. I'm interested to see how the light leaks and scratches come through. It's odd, but some of the light leaks looked really bad when I scanned the negatives, but when I print them with the enlarger they aren't so noticable.

The agave blossom is listed on ebay for .99. I'll keep doing this super low price auctions for awhile. These are 5x7s and unmatted. It's kind of a promotional thing. For the last year I've been selling my photos on ebay, but not doing it too seriously. But now I'm going to do it in ernest. It's definetly an experiment. But it seems like there are some photographers selling on ebay so we'll see.

I just listed a couple small Holga photos on ebay starting at $.99, hopefully they will sell... And hopefully they'll go for more. I'll be doing some more of these 99 center auctions. I like these small 5x5 or 5x7 inch photos just taped to the wall.

Snow Snow Snow SNow. We got about 5 or 6 inches of wet snow, like a big wet white blanket. I actually tried to take pictures of white--snow. Got to get some fix and start developing film. The backlog is growing.

I started using multigrade paper for the first time. I've always used graded paper. I really like the flexibility. I always had this idea that multigrade/variable contrast wasn't as good as graded, but it looks the same to me. The best part, I only need one box of paper! And it's cheaper!!

Here's a shot I took a couple years ago in Brooklyn at Bennett Field. It's a nature preserve now but it was one of the first airports. There's runways and abandoned buildings. It's a sprawling, fun place. I was out there after 9/11 shooting along the bay, completely enthralled by a rusted out breakwall when a police helicopter hovered over my head. I tried to ignore them, they eventually flew away. After a few minutes I walked back to my truck and took off my flannel shirt. A Park Police car slowed down to check me out. I guess I wasn't who they were looking for, so they sped up and jumped out of the car and ran to where I had just been shooting. Needless to say I hopped in and made my getaway. God knows what they thought I was doing with my Holga camera, but they obviously didn't like it.


And here's one I took last summer in Grand Marais, Minnesota. It was a very calm day. The sailing ship was rounding the corner at Artist's Point to head out into the open waters of Lake Superior.

I just bought a wafer thin Canon flatbed scanner so I can now scan my prints to add new work to the website and to put up some auctions on ebay. I do have three pictures on ebay right now that end March 7. I plan to keep adding new work on a regular basis. In my ebay store I have a bunch of my past inkjet prints. All the new work I'm selling on ebay is silver gelatin enlargements.

It is definitely harder to print using an enlarger than using a computer and inkjet printer. It took a few sessions to work out the kinks in my darkroom printing, but I feel now I can get what I want in a print.

I've been slogging through the posts on the analog photo users group trying to decide on a formula for alkaline fix for my negatives. I've used TF-4 from Photographer's Formulary but I ran out and for some reason I don't want to just order more, I want to make my own (maybe I'm cheap?), but it seems everyone who makes their own, has their own secret recipe. So it's a bit confusing on what formula to use. And then I have to figure out where to get all the needed chemicals. Art Craft Chemicals doesn't seem to have all that I need so I don't know where to get the rest. Ahhh, maybe a small order of TF-4 will do and buy me some time to figure this out. There's negatives to get working on.

I think I've said this before, but it really feels good to be printing in the darkroom and making photos the traditional way. For me, I came to realize that I didn't feel like I was making real photographs when I was using the inkjet printer.