Back to Basics..#2
gandolfi

Back to Basics..#2

Last night I made some observations regarding development of my own mix of liquid emulsion and I would like to share it with those who would like to play a little..:

Ok - I am a total amateur when it comes to making my own liquid emulsion.. but I think more should try it out.. so here's the recipe (from the book Silver Gelatin) and a few observations so far...

A:
Gelatin (food gelatin) 20g
Potassium bromide : 16g
Distilled water 125ml
Add the gelatin to the water and allow to swell.
Raise the temperature to 50deg. C (water jacket)
Add the Potassium Bromide and stir to all is dissolved.
B:
Silver Nitrate: 20g
Distilled water 125ml
Raise the temperature of B to 40 degrees – go to the darkroom and mix the two solutions.
Small quantities at a time while stirring.
Finally filter it through a cotton wool or similar..
Ready to use.

Observations:
I first applied one layer of gelatin (it seems to melt at a lower degree than I am used to).
Too grey (looks mottled/spottet and with no blacks)
Then two layers: better, but I realized I should give it a third layer (maybe if the temp was a little lower, the gelatin wouldn’t be as liquid and therefore would not be so thin? Time will tell)
I tried the normal way: making test prints – let it soak in the developer for about 2min…= bad idea..
Grey and spots all over the place – especially in the highlights…
So at the brink of total frustration with only two pieces of paper left, I thought : ”Fu*k it – I’ll try something I normally would never do:
Full aperture – about 30-40 seconds of exposure – a fresh developer at double strength than normal – and then only 10-15 sec development…
Interesting! The image looked grey/flat, but after rinsing and when put in the fix, the fix cleared the image; the blacks became more black and the final image turned out fine!
When dry with a beautiful warm, almost brown hue to it…
Something to persue…
Thank you for posting the process and your observations! I will have to try this as soon as I can. And, no less, is the beauty of the portrait.
 
Thanks for sharing with us. I to try to buy some chemic for this. Nice portrait!
 

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