My first test strip was very light at the beginning of the 5 second intervals, grade 3 and very quickly became black as the increments went on. So I have reduced the F stop down to the second lowest which allowed a lot more time to expose my image. However the contrast wasn't dynamic enough to emphasis the shapes and lines that the model made. I changed the grade up to 4 which produced very strong signs that the exposure was between 25 and 30 seconds so I produced a confirmation strip at 27 seconds.
This looks very promising however near the edge the whites are fading into mid tones. I think I will have to hold back areas of the image to make sure they are lighter. I cannot tell where I will have to hold back thought without a full sized unaffected image.
This image shows how in the top half the whites are more grey so a lot of this area will need to be held back, however I will have to be careful with the arms not to erase them from the image. I also notice how the lower half of the models body becomes very pale compared to the upper half so I could hold that back as well just a little to decrease the contrast.
This second print is exactly what I wanted to achieve. I have reduced the amount of greys in the top half whilst avoiding the arms and the lower part of the model is slightly darker.
