"INTERESTINGLY CAPTURED"
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Fred Hill
My name is Fred Hill. I am 82 years old, and I have been involved with photography since I was age 11. I was given the elementary rudiments by my mother who did her own darkroom processing. I am still involved with a little "cottage industry" that I call "FRED HILL, THE PHOTOSMITH."
In helping with the 503rd PRCT archive collection, working with Bob Flynn and Paul Whitman, I was given 25 black and white positive projection slides, size 3 � by 4. These were professionally mounted within a glass sandwich. The project was to obtain from these images, two negatives and to provide two prints from each image.
Almost any photographic problem can be solved, given enough time and equipment.
Not practical in this case would be to remove the positive film from within the cover glasses and contact print onto a sheet of orthochromatic film (not sensitive to red light, so the process could have been done by inspection under a red 'safelight'.) This, in essence, would have destroyed the fine, professional mounting of the slides.
I have and use, a horizontal process camera, primarily for copying old (usually) historic photographs for which there is no negative available, and to enhance faded images. For the slide copying project at hand, I chose to build a support for the slide that would go on the rails of the copy camera, made a bracket to hold a sheet of diffusing "opal" glass behind the slide and provide illumination from behind, thus I was able to photograph each slide just as though it were any other copy job.
Needless to say, it worked to perfection.
I use 4X5 film, because that is
the size of the enlarger that I have......an old Omega D-2 with condenser light
source......keep the processing clean and the darkroom dust-free and there is no
problem with magnified garbage on the negatives. This is the
contention of the diffusion or "cold light" devotees who see
condensers as a great pain.
I have enjoyed being a part of the "team" working on the 503rd PRCT archive. In WWII I was in the photo section of the 17th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, which was assigned the task of photographically covering the Corregidor jump in February 1945, and have a personal interest in the project. "Interestingly captured" so to speak!
