Let me start.
My name is Robert and I have been working with color photography for over 30 years. I first got into color by working at two commercial labs. One in the S.F. Bay Area and the other in Portland, Oregon.
Because the labs believed that if you were working in color they would offer free film processing and at cost printing. The idea was that you would get better and in my case it helped me. I became the lead color printer in the first lab and the "Go to" guy for the other.
I even got to print work for Ansel Adams for his book on color. Even though, I had argued that Ansel stated that a neg was the composition and the print was the performance. I had wanted to dodge and burn certain areas. The AA foundation wanted straight prints. I lost. I also printed work for John Wimberley, who gave me one of his color prints last year.
I love color photography. Its taken me sometime to understand why but I do love it. I have done years and years of black and white photography and I also love it was well. But, Color has a special place in my soul. I can see color and contrasts better then I can see tones and shades for black and white.
I collected books by fellow color photographers work. Eliot Porter is one, Christopher Burkett another and I look forward to a book by Charles Cramer. I have an interest in hand colored prints. I bought a book of hand colored prints of Crater Lake, Oregon. The book was hand made and has to be about 100 years old.
Anyway, I hope that you will now share your introduction to the group.
Thanks!

Greetings all ye colour shooters. Glad that you formed this group, Robert!

I have quite a lot of interest in colour theory and have been thinking of late about how differently b&w and colour images are composed and interpreted. If my amateur/idle musings on this subject are of interest, let me refer you to my apug blog, where I recently began jotting down a few stray thoughts.

My current colour projects include fujiroid emulsion transfers and similar ideas. I still have a few ideas for my remaining polaroid stock as well- mostly image transfers and such. For these projects and various others, I prefer to shoot colour slide when scene contrast permits. Other things on the back burner include negative colour macros (stay tuned!) and some EIR stuff... I got a 500' roll of 5" EIR and am eager to see if it's still any good.

Great Keith.
Could you share some of your Fuijchromes and Polaroids. I have an interest in those and would like to see samples.
Share any thoughts, this is an open forum. I think we could also discuss digital usage as well.

Will do. I just realized how to start a new thread in this group, so I'll start posting as soon as I get my scanner working again!

Hi my experience with colour is mainly from my time as a lab tech/owner. I have processed colour neg/trans and have done printer set-up and colour hand prints.
I am interested in old colour processes like Autochrome and Dufay check out some of my blog posts on creating colour Trichomes:
http://photo-utopia.blogspot.com/2007_12_02_archive.html

I am also interested in the science of colour, how luminance and chroma are processed separately by the brain, and I'm working on a project (that is beyond the scope of this site) that tries to make certain colours stand out/ or change relative to other colours and their luminosity.
hope that makes sense ;-)
Rather like the work of Josef Albers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Albers
Especially his book interaction of color, I want to explore how it works with photography rather than painting.
Hope that doesn't sound to precocious.
Mark

Hello,

My name is Trond, I live in Oslo, Norway. I'm a photographer and sociologist by education, but work with IT at Statistics Norway.

I use much of my spare time on photography, and shoot both black and white and colour, and develop everything myself, including E-6 and C-41, in our bathroom ;-). I started taking colour (more) seriously about three or four years ago, I find it an enjoyable and difficult challange.

You can check out some of my colour work in my gallery here on APUG if you wish.

Trond

Wow,
You two guys are far more experimental then me! Mark, it looks like your trying Dye Tranfer stuff. I tried that back in the mid 80's but Kodak stopped producing the materials so I had to do I-negs or work with Cibachrome material. I didn't like the pallet of Ciba's so I stuck with C prints.
Trond, I tried doing my own E-6 at home. Not thank you! I prefer to drive over my local lab and have them dip and dunk my film. I think I have an old E-4 kit in my darkroom somewhere. I should sell it or something.
I will indeed look up your work in the gallery. But, I also suggest that we can share work here on this forum as well. I have done it on the Pacific Northwest forum.
I'm also interested in the Autochrome material. I first saw a print of it at a Monet painting show. It was an image of the Old master next to his garden. Then, I saw a photo by Stieglitz and loved the look of it.
Now, if we can get the remaining two members to share about themselves and their work!

Hi Robert,

I have a Jobo ATL-1000, which helps a lot.

Trond

Well, I still rather use my friendly neighborhood photo lab. I have a CPP2 but I use it for my pyro development.
Where are the other color folks?!

I see we have two new members joining our merry band of color/colour fiends. WildBill and E76. Care to tells us a little about yourselves?
Don't be a afraid. We're all here to discuss color images. Put up some work too.
Maybe those other folks would also like to share a bio and print as well.

WildBill is Vinny. Vinny, please introduce yourself!

Trond, now I know where the name Trondheim comes from! You are famous!

Thanks for joining the group, I look forward to seeing everyone's experiments.

Excuse me for my unawares but what or where is Trondheim? I'm just a silly photographer on the west coast of the USA.
But, please introduce yourselves and share website or images on the color gallery.

Trondheim is a lovely city in Norway! They have an important marathon there, every year I think.

You see! I learned something new today.
I also see that our numbers are growing and I would really like to those new folks who are joinning our sub forum on color/colour.
Don't be shy. Tells us who you and what kind of color work you're doing or interested in.
I just bought a nice hand painted photograph that was made back in the 1930's.

Hi, Larry here from Amherst New Hampshire. I'm relatively new to color printing. It's quite a lot different from black and white and I'm still learning. Where as I can usually get a good print in no time in black and white, color takes me ages. Just when I think I have it right my wife will look at it and say "why is it so blue?"

In the past I have tried Ilfochrome, but I have put that on hold as it is way to expensive to learn on. I now shoot color negatives on 6x7 and 4x5 for printing and chrome films for scanning and as a good reference for what the color should maybe look like.

Hey there, Larry.
Welcome to the Color/Colour forum. Its funny but when I started to learn color printing I found it easier then B&W. Its because I didn't have to think about contrast or grades of paper. I love both processes and practice them when I can. I do a lot of chrome work but in my earlier days it was color neg. I forgot what a nice pallet neg film has and will probably step back into it. I'm also a cheep bastard and found out that processing for a roll of 120 neg film is half the cost for a E-6 roll.
Hey Larry,
Why Barney?

Hi my name is Bill and while black and white is my main form of photographic expression, I do shoot both C-41, E-6 and some Kodachrome.

At some point when all my local labs decide E-6 is not worth their time, I am going to have to find out how to develop it myself.

I too am going to be learning how to do c41 and E6 at home. I can get 5x7 and 8x10 developed at a local lab, but now I am doing two odd sizes... 5x8 and 4x10. And apparently the machines at the local lab can't handle that. The thing is, I am very resitant to bulk processing, I like to do everything one sheet at a time, inspecting as I go. So I need to do some thinking about how to set up for colour processing.

Perhaps itd be useful to create a recipes and tricks discussion thread on at-home E6 and C41?

Go for it, Keith.
I remember in my lab days I wore a infrared goggles to see if any racks fell or loose film. I don't remember seeing any details of the film.
My problem is the city I live in is very concern about chemistry. They have asked citizens not to change their own oil or wash their cars at home and I understand there is laws being thought about limiting phosphorus dyes in laundry soap.
Then there are my kids, one of them is very aware of her environment issues. She would prefer me being all digital until I ask her about the computer parts in the land fill.

I'm currently a high school student living in Western Maryland and a newcomer to color photography, having just started to make RA-4 prints late last year after years of shooting and printing B&W. I found great inspiration in the incredible color photographs of Jeff Wall, and his influence was my primary motivation for beginning to work in color. I've also been using Polaroid for well over a year now, and absolutely adore 600 and Type 669, which I use in my SX-70 and Automatic 250, respectively. Most recently I've also begun using slide film on a limited basis, and have even picked up a few rolls of Kodachrome to try.

While color lacks the immense degree of control of grown to know and love with B&W, there really is something special about a finely made color print. I hope to continue my work with color for years to come.

Hey E76!
Welcome to the Color/Colour forum. Its great that you are just starting to learn about the process. I wish you all the best.

Hi. Keith told me to join. Here I am. I've been on APUG now for a couple of years, and have learnt more about photography during that time than in the...er...decades....since I took photography classes back in a different century. I've not developed colour, and don't see myself doing so, but I've shot alot of slides over the years, have occasionally hand-coloured prints, and in the past year have been exploring gum bichromate. I've been over on hybridphoto for most of that, as I've been doing colour separations in PS and printing digital negatives. My recent aquisition of an 8x10 camera has me very excited about being able to do gums and other alt prints without having to use the computer.
Is the analogue-only rule relaxed for the sub-groups? Can I post gums that have been made with digital negs here?

Hi Sly, welcome. I think you can post your gums; I think the main point is that we might not want a lot of discussion on digital negs and scanners and whatnot... keeping the focus on colour photography, in other words. Anyway Robert runs the show so he can say! As for me, I'm interested in any process, I just get annoyed when a subforum/group/site spends all of its time on recommending scanners and dicking back and forth over what kit has what resolution :rolleyes:

No fear! I'm bored by that kind of talk too. One of the reasons I wanted to get away from digital negatives was because I was tired of feeling vaguely guilty and lazy because the whole precision digital negative and creating special curves for each process and each pigment was not part of my work flow. It's the taking of phots and slopping around with chemicals I enjoy, not clicking a mouse. I don't do the zone system, either - too much like work getting it all figured out.

Hey there Sly.
Run with it! I have no problem with you showing your work digital negs or not. I want people to show work, discuss processes and share ideas. Color is the theme. I'm planning to show some really old hand colored images. They are really fun. I'm tempted to try it.
I just got back home from a photography meeting and felt beat up there. Lots of black and white photographers who "Hate" color because they don't understand it. Working in color is far easier for me then some other processes. When I was leaving I met two other photo friends who also work in color and felt the jabs. I told them to come to the Apug Color sub forum. Promotion is the key to get others to understand color.