Direct Color Positives
I learned to do this process from Joe van Cleave and Ethan Moses' videos about it. In the spring of 2020 I had some extra time on my hands and experimented with colorfilters in my lens for color correction. Then I went into forest, where it was more busy than usual, and shot pictures of people at a distance larger than a meter and a half.
Then I took the papers to the darkroom. Seeing the image appear is just magic.
There is a grainyness to these images that I want to overcome by shooting much bigger papers, so I need a much bigger camera.
The challenge with direct color positives is getting the colors correct. RA4 type paper needs a heavy color correction. Normally the negatives correct for this; this is why color negatives are on an orange film.
You can see such an orange cast in the view through my wooden camera for this very reason.
I used lee filters for theater lamps. To keep the dust off, and to safe them from cleaning marks, I put them inside the lens, between the elements.
Temperature matters too. I was developing in may bath tub at first, keeping everything warm, au bain marie.
The bath tub got really smelly, to the point I felt like bathing in blix when taking a bath myself.
When I developed so much that the bath cooled down anyway, I realized that since I was color correcting in the lens filter anyway, I can correct for cold dev too, and just put the trays on my desk.
Shooting is tricky too. There really is no room for under or over exposure. It's iso 3 by the way, filters included.
I think I need to add an UV/IR cut filter over the lens too.
Bigger
This project brought the need for a bigger camera to shoot bigger sheets, and the wish for a built in darkroom, so I can do this on the spot. Do check out the Street Camera project.