A few days ago I made my first attempt at trying burning and am happy to say it went pretty well!
This was shot on HP5 at 800 on my Nikon N80 with a 50mm lens. I printed it on Adorama 8×10 multigrade Pearl using my Omega D2 with a my 50mm Schneider at f11. I exposed the sheet using a #4 filter for 12 seconds and burned the sky for 15 more. The results I find quite pleasing – the road is contrasty and the hills overtly so which is kinda what I wanted (it’s a bit more pronounced perhaps). The sky turned out lovely! I was worried that burning the sky might cause some halos where the sky bordered the hills, but because they’re already so dark and because the sky was lighter there anyway, it worked out pretty well. The scene is certainly more contrasty than it actually was but the sky actually wasn’t too far off from what I remember. The one flaw is the white speck in the sky which, alas, I think is stuck on the negative.
This definitely helped me get over my fear of doging and burning a bit. It still makes me a tad nervous but less so with the Adorama paper given it was much less expensive than Ilford (and was on sale when I bought it). I find it leans towards contrasty prints so it works when that’s what I want but I find Ilford has better tone overall and tends to give a nicer look overall. Still, for practice prints, Adorama is where it’s at. I think it is rebranded Foma.
Anyways despite that annoying dust spot (which can be touched up) I’m rather proud of this print given it’s my first print, ever, where I used burning. I’ll definitely be doing that more on skies for sure!