Showcase for Your HCWP's

[Vaughn]

Nicely done, Niranjan. That stairway in Greece looks to have wonderful light to play with!

 

[Rolleiflexible]

I remember the original of that way back when when you posted it here as a silver print.

This kallitype eclipses my earlier attempts to print this negative. It is a challenging negative to print. I'm glad I went back to it.

 

[nmp]

Nicely done, Niranjan. That stairway in Greece looks to have wonderful light to play with!

Thanks, Vaughn. I think I could have made the end of the stairway a little bit brighter to increase the impact. But I didn't want to lose the details and blow it out. So I didn't push it.

:Niranjan.

 

[Vaughn]

Thanks, Vaughn. I think I could have made the end of the stairway a little bit brighter to increase the impact. But I didn't want to lose the details and blow it out. So I didn't push it.

:Niranjan.

The top of the image might be a little heavy, but the composition still carries the weight to get our eyes up there.

Here is something a little different --

Dead Big Horn Sheep, April 2019
Zion National Park
5x7 negative
Platinum/palladium Print

 

[KYsailor]

Here's a kallitype I printed this afternoon. Because it has a naked body in it, I'm attaching it as a thumbnail. I shot the negative in 2007. I don't think I can post this one on Instagram so I uploaded it to the PHOTRIO gallery..

beautiful image - the contrast between the model and the chaotic vegetation is striking, and the tonality of the kallitype is excellent.

 

[KYsailor]

Two more salt prints from me too:


View attachment 345341

Blind Arches and Archway / Jamnagar, India


View attachment 345343

Way Out / Skyros, Greece

Process still the same - same paper (5"x8" COT 320.)


:Niranjan.

Beautiful prints - again I need to look into salt printing.

 

[fgorga]

Looking good, Frank.
The light reflecting adds nicely to the image!

Thanks, Vaughn.

 

[fgorga]

Two more salt prints from me too:


View attachment 345341

Blind Arches and Archway / Jamnagar, India


View attachment 345343

Way Out / Skyros, Greece

Process still the same - same paper (5"x8" COT 320.)


:Niranjan.

Two interesting images, printed very well.

 

[fgorga]

Humidity wrecks my workflow. When printing negatives onto Fixxons with my QTR curves, it makes the ink pool in areas of highest loads. But if I run a dehumidifier and drive down RH levels to 50%, I’m back in business.

Absolutely! Humidity is the critical factor in alt process printing. Too little humidity and you can't print... there needs to be a certain level of hydration of the cellulose to allow the movement of electrons between the various redox centers. Too much humidity and things are very slow to dry or don't dry at all.

In my experience, most processes work OK in the range of 40-70% humidity.

My dim room is in my basement and I have the opposite problem from you.

The temperature runs from maybe a high of 70 F (this time of year) to a low in the upper 40s F in the dead of winter. The humidity runs around 60-65% for most of the year, which is ideal. All of this without any active heating or cooling.

We have a heat pump based water heater in the basement which acts as a dehumidifier so that helps this time of year.

My problem is low humidity when it is really cold.

I can work in the basement without supplemental heat until the temperature gets to about 55 F. Below that it is too chilly to spend hours printing but I run into problems with humidity if I start up the wood stove. which is the only source of heat in the basement. However, running the wood stove drops the humidity sometimes as low a 20%. Thus I can not print in really cold weather, because of the low humidity.

My advice to alt printing beginners is to get an inexpensive digital thermometer/hydrometer and note the temp and humidity at the start of each session. That way you will have data for deciding what conditions work in one's individual situation.

 

[nmp]

The top of the image might be a little heavy, but the composition still carries the weight to get our eyes up there.

Here is something a little different --

Dead Big Horn Sheep, April 2019
Zion National Park
5x7 negative
Platinum/palladium Print

It took me a while to find the sheep...good way to make the viewer explore the whole picture.

I guess this is the kind of an image that Pt/Pd excels in, with the majority of the tones in the upper zones. I wonder if something like carbon can reproduce a high-key image like this as well. Salt can probably do it.

:Niranjan.

 

[nmp]

Two interesting images, printed very well.

Thanks Frank. Your last set was nice too.

:Niranjan.

 

[nmp]

Humidity wrecks my workflow. When printing negatives onto Fixxons with my QTR curves, it makes the ink pool in areas of highest loads. But if I run a dehumidifier and drive down RH levels to 50%, I’m back in business.

Would blow drying it just before printing work? It probably might make the curl much worse, though.

:Niranjan.

 

[Sirius Glass]

It took me a while to find the sheep...good way to make the viewer explore the whole picture.

I guess this is the kind of an image that Pt/Pd excels in, with the majority of the tones in the upper zones. I wonder if something like carbon can reproduce a high-key image like this as well. Salt can probably do it.

:Niranjan.

One could add a big arrow in FauxTow$hop.

 

[Rolleiflexible]

Would blow drying it just before printing work? It probably might make the curl much worse, though.

:Niranjan.

I am guessing not -- I think it's the ink solvent's inability to evaporate into the humid air, not the film's retention of moisture, that causes this problem.

And given my experiences with Epson P900's printer paths, I would be reluctant to do anything to increase film curl. (It took six printer replacements for me to receive one that was free of paper path misalignment issues.)

 

[nmp]

I am guessing not -- I think it's the ink solvent's inability to evaporate into the humid air, not the film's retention of moisture, that causes this problem.

And given my experiences with Epson P900's printer paths, I would be reluctant to do anything to increase film curl. (It took six printer replacements for me to receive one that was free of paper path misalignment issues.)

Got it...I don't know why I was thinking of moisture in the coating creating more favorable conditions for pooling. Yeah, you definitely don't want more curl!


:Niranjan.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

A trio of platinum/palladium prints. All three are a pt/pd blend - approximately 60:40 Platinum/ palladium. All three on Bergger COT320.

 

[nmp]

A trio of platinum/palladium prints. All three are a pt/pd blend - approximately 60:40 Platinum/ palladium. All three on Bergger COT320.

Intriguing images, Scott. The second on seems to have a reflection of the first one. What camera - Holga or something funky like that?

:Niranjan.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Intriguing images, Scott. The second on seems to have a reflection of the first one. What camera - Holga or something funky like that?

:Niranjan.

The second one is more or less the same view as the first, but it includes the reflections in the plate glass window of the interior of my hotel room. They were both shot with my Kodak Chevron, a 6x6cm on 120/620 film camera (it takes 620 or if you use 620 takeup spools, you can load 120 in the feeding chamber if you trim the reels down a little with nail clippers). The hotel is the Sheraton Maria Isabel in Mexico City. I was in a room on the 21st floor of the new tower of the hotel, with a view to the west/south of the city.

 

[nmp]

I see...that the reflection of the room as you are shooting through the glass. I thought it was the other way around...visual dyslexia...

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

I see...that the reflection of the room as you are shooting through the glass. I thought it was the other way around...visual dyslexia...

Oh, the image is deliberately hard to read - I want people to think about what they're seeing. Challenge perceptions and all that.

 

[Vaughn]

Oh, the image is deliberately hard to read - I want people to think about what they're seeing. Challenge perceptions and all that.

Good images, FC.

I just showed this photo for the first time -- I have been hanging on to it for awhile, as it is also 'difficult to read' and I waited for a place of good light and audience. It was a juried show and it got an honorable mention or something like that. I was nicely surprised at that because it is not a 'pretty' picture.

Chained, Mendocino County
8x10 platinum/palladium print from camera negative.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

two more, portraits this time. The first one is Arturo Talavera, the Mexican photographer, in his studio. The second one is Gabriel Barajas, my collaborator on the Foto Inter/Cambio conference. Both were shot with my Kodak Chevron when I was down in Mexico City in March of this year. IIRC both were shot on Tri-X, although the one of Gabriel might have been FP4+. Again, 60:40 Platinum / Palladium mix. The print of Arturo is on COT320, the print of Gabriel is on Revere Platinum.

 

[Rolleiflexible]

Scott, I print tons of Revere but have never used COT320. How do the two compare, in your experience?

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Scott, I print tons of Revere but have never used COT320. How do the two compare, in your experience?

In terms of overall color and contrast, they're quite similar, as is the amount of chemistry required to coat. The Revere is slightly warmer - the COT320 is bright white. I feel like the Revere is also slightly heavier and stiffer than the COT320.

 

[KYsailor]

Not sure if this belongs here - technically not a hand coated wet print - but a photopolymer intaglio print from Clay Harmon's workshop .... printed on Hahnemühle etching paper with a mix of black/sienna ink. The interior of a cathedral in Munich ( I can't remember which one). Image captured on a Fuji X-T1, 18-55mm@18/F2.8 - ISO 3200 1/25. Printed on Jet photopolymer plate, UV exposed and developed, hand inked and intaglio printed. Image is about 5X7, scanned on Epson V600. I really like this process; however it requires a rather expensive intaglio press.... even more expensive that the alt photo chemicals/equipment!

Dave