This was it

Yes, the result of a couple of hours in the darkroom on Saturday morning.  Funny how time flies when you are in there, pondering how to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, as the saying goes...

This one you may have seen before, or a version of it.  Here is the first attempt, after a split-grade print:

I'm getting more adventurous when it comes to things in the darkroom.  I thought there were a few places which could do with a little work on this print.  The first thing that caught my eye (apart from the obvious fantastic-ness of the whole thing) was that light bit on the top left.  Too distracting, I thought.  Also the leaf at the bottom right - needed a bit of darkening down too.  Then that right-hand edge, which was leading the eye out of the frame.  And that leaf along the top edge needed some treatment too.

This is version 2:

Amazingly, everything seemed to fall into place more or less as I intended and I was happy enough that the big leaf in the middle was going to hold the attention better.

I made a few prints and did a Sepia tone on one of them:

I think the tone suits the subject, to my eyes anyway.  Although the top left corner and right-hand edge have now got a whole lot lighter again after the toning - d'oh!

At the minute I seem to think that a lot of my prints look better toned than not - but it's probably just a phase I'm going through.  All good fun, though and as I've said before, a great way to waste a couple of hours on a Saturday morning...