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Re-examining Bad Negatives Further Botched by Poor Processing

Sometimes I just got it wrong.

On my August 1984 trip to Montreal, I carried two Leica 3A rangefinders.

One was loaded with Kodachrome. The other with Kodak Tri-X.

The problem was that on the B&W camera, I was using a pre-war (1930s vintage) Leitz Elmar with uncoated elements. While sharp, this tended to produce low-contrast images that exhibited a variety of artifacts.

Complicating matters, the I had bulk-loaded Tri-X into cassetts that I’d used again and again. In this instance, the cassette suffered from some minor light leaks and scratched so of the negatives.

The shutter on the old Leica wasn’t the best. While it did ok at a 1/200th, and 1/100th (no 1/250th or 1/125th as on more modern cameras), most of the other shutter speeds were a bit random.

And if all that wasn’t enough, I did a pretty poor job of processing the film! I don’t recall exactly what I did, but from the looks of the negatives, I was using nearly exhausted developer. To compensate for the weak solution, I upped the temperature and the time. The results were very low contrast with comparatively high-grain.

Back in the day, I’d deemed the negatives too challenging to print, so I put them in a glassine envelope largely unprinted.

Despite all that, I’d managed to make some interesting compositions, if not great photographs. The other day I scanned the whole roll.

The photo displayed here iswest of Montreal at Sainte Anne-de-Bellevue along the parallel Canadian National and Canadian Pacific double lines.

I had taken a suburban train from Windsor Station. And made this view of an eastward VIA Rail LRC train with MLW diesel coming out of the afternoon sun.

Unmodified scan of 35mm Kodak Tri-X negative exposed using uncoated Leitz 50mm Elmar with a Leica 3A rangefinder processed in some sort of low-grade soup that barely qualified as developer.
Slightly improved version of the above photo. This was modified in digital post processing to increase contrast, remove spots and adjust exposure.

The following year, as my second camera, I brought with me to Montreal my father’s vintage 1960 Rolleiflex Model T, which used 120 size film and had an excellent Zeiss Tessar lens (coated!). Loaded with Plus-X, this produced vastly superior results.

Live and learn.

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Canadian Pacific Six-motor MLWs in Montreal.

Another classic from my files: this Kodachrome slide was exposed on my epic trip to Montreal with Tom Carver 30 years ago.

Among the inspirations for the trip was a tip that Tom received that CP Rail had placed back into freight service several of its ‘Bigs’- a nickname for its six-motor Montreal Locomotive Works diesels.

These classics had been stored owing to a downturn in traffic, but placed back into service in early 1993, which presented an opportunity to see and photograph these rare diesels at work. So, despite exceptional cold, Tom and I had braved winter in Montreal.

Only about a dozen or so of the six-motor MLWs were working at that time and mostly in relatively short-haul freight services. We followed one freight to the Port of Montreal. I made this view using Tom’s 28mm lens in Hochelaga neighborhood of Montreal on the afternoon of January 12, 1993.

Kodachrome 25 slide exposed with a Nikon F3T and borrowed Nikkor 28mm lens.

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VIA Rail Montreal Central Station—1985

I’d traveled overnight from Toronto to Montreal on VIA Rail, one leg of a larger international rail trip in May 1985.

Working with my Leica 3A, I exposed this photo of a departing VIA Rail passenger train, as I stood in the shadow of the signal tower where I was visiting with the operator.

Backlit sun made for a dramatic effect as FPA4 6789 accelerated away from the platforms.

Unfortunately, I used my handheld meter to expose for full sunlight, which resulted in a decidedly dark Kodachrome slide.

Last night I edited my scan of the image using Adobe Lightroom, where I made a series of modifications to make for a more pleasing image.

I adjusted the exposure, contrast, color temperature, and saturation globally, while making numerous fine adjustments aimed at refining the end result.

The unaltered scan is on top, my adjusted version below.

Kodachrome 64 color slide following adjustment for internet presention.

Incidentally, years later VIA Rail 6789 was preserved and restored into Canadian National colors by the Monticello Railway Museum in Illinois.

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Mount Webster from the Time Before.

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In August 1984, on my first solo visit to Montreal I spent an afternoon at Central Station hanging around in the tower and photographing train-movements in and out of this busy terminal.

Among the numerous fascinating photos I made that day was this view of CN multiple unit 6749 with a commuter train to/from Duex Montagnes, Quebec.

Today, old CN 6749 is Conway Scenic Railroad’s Mount Webster, a snack car known to employees as ‘the table’ car since it was retrofitted with tables and a snack counter.

I spent Monday measuring and mapping this same car to prepare seating charts for Conway Scenic’s 2020 season.

I never could have imagined on that August day so long ago that I’d be working with 6749 in New Hampshire.

Same car; different time.

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