Swerbo.com is a digital exhibit of my personal adventures in black and white film photography and gelatin silver darkroom printing. My work leans toward street, documentary, architectural, and urban landscape photography in and around the City of San Francisco, although I branch out from there occasionally.
I enjoy the entire end-to-end process of hands-on analog photography — from making images on vintage cameras to experimenting with different film stocks to developing darkroom prints to mounting, matting, and framing finished pieces of physical art. For those interested in my technical methods, I currently do all of my developing and printing at the Harvey Milk Photo Center in San Francisco while generally following the processes outlined below.
Please contact me if you are interested in my photography or any of the prints displayed on this website.
Film Cameras
- Minolta Autocord (1955)
- Canonet QL-17 G-III (1972)
- Olympus OM-2n (1975)
- Olympus OM-4Ti (1986)
- Canon EOS-3 (1998)
- Bronica RF645 (2000)
- Bessa R3A (2004)
Film Development
- Film: Kodak Tri-X & Ilford HP5+/FP4+
- Kodak D-76 (1+1) or Ilford ID-11 (1+1) Developer: Time Varies by Film
- Kodak Indicator or Ilford Ilfostop: 30 seconds
- Ilford Rapid Fixer: 5 minutes
- Initial Wash: 5 minutes
- Perma Wash: 5 minutes
- Final Wash: 10 minutes
- Kodak Photo-Flo: 1 minute
- Film Dryer: 20 minutes
Darkroom Printing
- Paper: Ilford Classic MG Fiber Glossy or Matt Paper
- Enlarger: LPL/Saunders 4500 II
- Kodal Dektol (1+2) or Ilford Multigrade Developer (1+9): 2-4 minutes
- Ilford Ilfostop: 30 seconds
- Ilford Rapid Fixer: 5 minutes
- Initial Wash: at least 5 minutes
- Perma Wash: 10 minutes
- Final Wash: 10 minutes
- Air dry on screens (or drum dryer)
- Heat press then cold press to flatten
- Dry mount and/or window mat finishing