The Night Shift

“The Night Shift” was a multi-year project that ended in 2011 when I finally got off of the graveyard shift at work.  The foundational work was originally intended to run from 2008 to 2009, but I was learning how to use a large format camera at night while I was taking the pictures.  I got better as time went on, and I decided to keep going.  The prerequisite for inclusion is that the negatives have to be able to be contact printed in the darkroom.  Negatives that require help from Photoshop are not included.

©2010 Gary L. Quay

This is the Southpark Fish House in Portland, Oregon.

The exposure was 80 seconds at F16. The meter indicated 12 seconds with HP5 rated at 200 ASA instead of 400. Reciprocity failure compensation took it to 40 seconds, and I added 1 stop to correct for N-1 contraction in development to help control the highlights. In the darkroom, the time suggested for Harvey’s Panthermic 777 developer was 11 minutes @ 74ºF. My darkroom was at 65 degrees, which took it to 18:45. I subtracted 30% for the 200 ASA rating, 30% of the remaining time for N-1 contraction, and 20% for compensation for reciprocity. I ended up with 8 minutes total development time. This seemed to work. I was always afraid to make all of these adjustments because I had so much trouble with thin negatives early on, but I seem to be better at metering at night, and I’ve gotten better in the darkroom.

Camera: Deardorff 8×10.
Lens: 19″ Goerz APO Artar.
Film: Ilford HP5+ developed in Harvey’s 777.
Contact printed on Ilford MGIV FB glossy, developed in Ansco 130.

©2007 Gary L. Quay

This is not technically in Portland.  It’s the Blue Heron paper plant in Oregon City.

I was inspired to take this image by the industrial photography of Ansel Adams. I have always liked old things. I seek out landscapes and cityscapes that remind me of the early to mid 20th century.

The Blue Heron plant closed a few years ago, and recently there was a fire that destroyed one of the buildings.  This picture is now impossible to recreate, so it make the image more precious.

Camera: Kodak Commercial 8×10
Lens: 12″ Kodak Ektar
Film: Ilford HP5 developed in Kodak HC110.

©2008 Gary L. Quay

This is a corner on Belmont Street in SE Portland. I took it at about 3:00 AM on a brisk November night.

This was an 11 minute exposure.

Camera: Kodak Commercial 8×10
Lens: 12″ Kodak Ektar
Film: Ilford HP5 developed in Agfa Rodinol 1:50.

©2009 Gary L. Quay

This is a historic church in Sellwood, Oregon down by the Willamette River. Gaia and I were there one evening to take pictures a number of years ago as part of my Night Shift series. I posted a version of this years ago that looks much spookier due to a number of mistakes that I made. This one is less spooky, but it’s still a tad haunting on its own.

Camera: Kodak Commercial 8×10
Lens: 13” Kodak Ektar
Film: Ilford Ortho+ developed in Agfa Rodinal 1:50.

©2008 Gary L. Quay

This is a grain elevator on the Willamette River, taken from a vantage point along Yeon Ave. It was one of my first 8×10 negatives, and as such, has some issues. It could have been worse, though. I’ll take it.

Camera: Kodak Commercial 8×10
Lens: 12″ Kodak Ektar
Film: Ilford HP5+ developed in Kodak HC-110 and contact printed on Ilford MGIV RC.

©2008 Gary L. Quay

It was late November in Portland. By some miracle it was not raining. A member of a local band called “Tapwater” stopped by to talk about my camera, which looks very out of place these days. This was an 11 minute exposure, so you can’t see said member of Tapwater running along the street before coming over to talk. My wife and I had seen the band a few years back at the Oregon State Fair, and had bought their CD. Considering just how out of the loop we are with today’s music, it seemed highly coincidental to run into a member of a band I had actually heard of.

The lens I used for this picture is a fairly rare brass lens of the “Rapid Rectilinear” type, which is a precursor of the Bausch & Lomb Tessar design, which is the foundation of modern optics.  Rapid in the name means that it lets in a lot of light, and rectilinear means that it projects straight lines as straight.  It is technically a “Whole Plate”, or 6.5″x8.5″ lens, so it does not cover an entire 8×10 negative when focused at infinity.  That’s why this one is heavily vignetted.  I don’t mind in this case.

Camera: Calumet C-1 with 8×10 back
Lens: Hyatt’s Rapid (Made about 1880)
Film: Ilford HP5 developed in HC110

©2008 Gary L. Quay

From my Night Shift show. This is the corner of Lombard and Philadelphia in St Johns. In the distance is the St Johns Bridge. This was an 11 minute exposure.

Camera: Calumet C-1 8×10.
Lens: 12″ Goerz RD Artar.
Film: Ilford HP5+
Contact printed on Ilford MGIV FB paper developed in Ansco 130.

©2009 Gary L. Quay

Taken from the Burnside Bridge in Portland, Oregon.

The Deardorff I use was made in 1939. It isn’t a museum piece. It’s heavy, and bulky. I have to be very careful not to break the ground glass while carting it around. Folks stop and ask, “Do they still make film for that?” while I’m using it. That’s the question I was asked while setting up for this shot. What inspires me to continue using bulky, old camera with weighty optics is, quite simply, magic. I am always amazed by what film can capture, especially while using tiny apertures. I want as little technology between the shutter and the film as possible. I want to control the exposure. I want to control the focus. I don’t want a fancy camera that makes perfect shots every time. I want to make mistakes. I’ve gotten some great images from mistakes.

Camera: Deardorff 8×10
Lens: 12″ Kodak Ektar
Film: Ilford HP5+ Developed in Kodak HC-110.

©2009 Gary L. Quay

This was supposed to be the final picture in “The Night Shift” series, but I later decided to keep it going. I took it at Earl Boyles Middle School in SE Portland. The tree sits very close to a bright streetlight near the school’s entrance. It was early spring, and the cherry trees were blooming.

I did not keep records of what lens I used, or what developer, but I have a pretty good guess as to what I used. I’ve been through so much equipment that it is sometimes hard to sort it out, but I had not been using 8×10 for very long at the time, so the choices were limited.

Camera: Kodak Commercial 8×10.
Lens: 12″ Kodak Ektar
Film: Ilford HP5+ developed in Rodinal 1:50.

©2009 Gary L. Quay

Spring had almost sprung. I drove my aging Volvo into the West Hills high above Portland, and erected my tripod just up the road from the Vista Bridge. As was the case many nights before, my day job working on the night shift was keeping me awake on my days off. This is one result.

I printed this one too dark over the years, but I saw that a lighter touch was needed to retain more of the shadow detail.  I like this version much better.

Camera: Deardorff 8×10
Lens: 19″ Goerz APO Artar
Film: Ilford HP5 Developed in Ilford Perceptol

P.S. It seems I used much simpler names for my images back then.

©2009 Gary L. Quay

This one was taken from the floating dock that sits near the Eastbank Esplanade in SE Portland. The water was still enough to take a 6 minute exposure. I was there with my friend, Mike, who also posed for the “East Berlin” image on one of my “From the Vaults” posts.  He shot with his Yashica-Mat, and I with my Deardorff.

Camera: Deardorff V8
Lens: 12″ Kodak Ektar.
Film: Ilford HP5+ developed in Clayton F76+

©2009 Gary L. Quay

I took this in Portland, Oregon as part of my Night Shift series, which consisted of large format black and white images, mostly done with 8×10. It was the first picture I ever took with Ilford Ortho Plus film. Nobody had heard of it when I first started special ordering it at Blue Moon Camera, and looking back all these years later, and seeing how this film has gotten more popular as of the spring of 2021, I think I may have started something.

Camera: Deardorff 8×10
Lens: 12″ Kodak Ektar,
Film: Ilford Ortho Plus developed in Ilford Perceptol

©2011 Gary L. Quay

This was one of my last “Night Shift” pictures. I had taken to vehturing farther afield in the latter days of the project, and Hood River fit the bill. This is just outside of Hood River, in a little town called Pine Grove.

Camera: Deardorff 8×10
Lens: 300mm Nikkor-W
Film: Ilford HP5+ developed in PMK Pyro