It is hard to describe exactly the look of a Tri-X picture. Words like “grainy” and “contrasty” capture something of the effect, but there is more, something to do with the obsidian blacks produced by the film and with a certain unique drama that made the rock photography of the Sixties and Seventies so powerful and distinctive. Steve Schofield, a British photographer, now in Los Angeles, who first encountered Tri-X in the Seventies, has a different word: “I got these incredibly contrasty negatives that still somehow managed to render detail in both the shadows and highlights. It’s got that steely look, not warm like lots of other film bases. It’s that basic look from Tri-X that I’ve tried to incorporate into my work which is now mostly shot digitally and is now colour…that monochromatic palette, but interpreting it with a simple color base. If I do ever need to shoot black-and-white, I always prefer film and always opt for Tri-X.”
An interesting article about black and white film photography. A bit nostalgic, I think, but interesting nonetheless. It's about a particular kind of film that Kodak introduced in 1954. Some photographers still swear by it (it's still manufactured). A paragraph: