Several years ago I used to shoot paper negatives a lot. Just recently, after moving house, I found one of my ET Underwood 'Instanto' cameras from c1896, cut some paper down, guessed the exposure and developed it in Rodinal. Paper neg shown on the light box.
I took two shots - one at 3 seconds, the other (this one) at 6 seconds. There's detail in the shadows of the trees, which I was surprised with. The image itself was just a random shot, nothing special!
This one must have more shadow detail than the 3 second exposure. I do paper negs in pinhole cameras with my students. To get decent tonal scale and detail, I pre-flash all the paper, and dilute the developer way down.
@Andrew O'Neill - Back when I did a reasonable amount of paper negatives (even taking the 1/4-plate camera up the French Alps!) I used a yellow filter with it. Do you use a filter? I've not tried pre-flashing the paper and this is the first time that I've had a go with using Rodinal to develop paper. Which developer do you use?
When I make paper negatives for myself, I use a yellow filter. I don't do that for my students, as it's just too expensive. We're on a tight budget. I use very dilute Ilford MG developer. For myself, I use Pyrocat-HD.