Visible To Invisible Silver Gelatin Print?

[Alexandra Isobella]

Hi there.
Im new here and I have a question that I am really sturggling to find the answer to.
I would like to produce a print that fades rapidly in UV light. Obviously if i don't use fixer it will just go brown. Im wondering if anyone out there knows anything about bleaching or different chemical reactions to create a rapid fade.

Thanks
Alex

 

[AgX]

Welcome to Apug!

I'm quite sure that a few weeks ago we got a thread on something similar, but I can't find at the moment.

Do you want that vanishing to take place at the dry print? If you allow the print to be wet then you would have more possibilities.
And what do you mean by "rapidly"?

 

[Alexandra Isobella]

I want the print when exposed to uv to fade while you are watching. So dry print yes. Possibility of painting a chemical on to make it fade. Its for an ephemeral public art work i'm doing. So the image is pinned to a wall and when exposed to uv i want it to fade. Part of it may be me going up to the print to coat it with something to make it fade, I just cant find any info anywhere.

 

[removed account4]

retina prints / sun prints do just that ...
it is what Nicéphore Niépce ( the guy who invented photography ) did ..

to get a "positive" take a film negative, make a photogram &c
put it in contact with fresh photo paper in sunlight, and leave it there for as long as it takes ...
contrary to popular belief photopaper doesn't turn black immediately, it slowly changes and prints ..
experiment with direct sunlight and open shade, cloudy and sunny days ...

you can do this with a camera too, butyou will have a negative ... put paper in whatever camera you have
( or make one with a box and magnifying glass, diopter or other lens ) leave the shutter open all the way with the paper
in the camera, after 45mins or a few hours ( i have done this with a camera open for 30 hours before )
you will have an image on the paper ... if you make a box -camera you will have to cut the back out of the box
and make a focusing screen ( waxed paper or tracing paper works great and costs almost nothing ) slide the frame in and out
of the inside of the box and tape it to the bottom of the inside of the box when your image is in focus ... cap your lens and
put your paper on the focus screen and make your exposure .. its a slow deliberate process
in the end ( both cases ) will have an images that are unstable, and not fixed.
if you fix it it turns white, if you develop it it turns black and if you leave it alone
it stays a print and eventually fades to grey ... i do these all the time ...
but they don't take hours or days to fade, they may start to change
in minutes and hours ... BUT ... you might be in luck ...
i have made some with liquid emulsion, 7 years ago and they still look perfect .. like i took them yesterday
i think your best bet might be to use liquid emulsion to do this, it will take longer to fade ..

regarding the fading ... even in a dark drawer under a stack of paper they turn grey, the liquid emulsions don't as much ..

good luck with your project !
john

 

[Mick Fagan]

Well you could use Potassium Ferricyanide, as that will certainly make the image disappear. There is however the problem of how to apply in an environment other than where you have water to clean the paper/print after wiping or immersing in a solution.

I would also be using resin coated papers (RC paper) for the ability of the paper to be immersed in liquid, wiped in liquid with only the emulsion, which is on top of the resin coating (plastic coating) absorbing any liquid.

If you have an RC print stuck on a piece of angled sheet glass, you will find you can apply all sorts of liquid stuff to the print, providing you have a suitable receptacle underneath to gather dripping liquid, you will be sweet. You can also use a squeegee over the print, with literally no apparent harm to the image. That said, if you wish for the image to disappear, then damage to the actual image is probably the furtherest thing from your mind.

Effectively you are needing to beach the image, which is what potassium ferricyanide does. This process is mostly referred to as, Farmer's Reducer. Do some searches on this forum and elsewhere for further information, but be careful, it is a reasonably dangerous substance. I have it and use it, but not often.

Mick.

 

[Gerald C Koch]

It has been my experience that attempting to bleach an image like a normal density print will result in a brown stain with ferricyanide. I know of no bleach process that does not use water that will remove an image and leave a blank piece of paper. UV light will darken the image until it no longer exists but I don't know if that is what is desired.

 

[jvo]

the usps issued a stamp to commemorate the recent eclipse... it was a black orb, that faded to an image of the earth on exposure to light - very interesting. don't know what the "technology" is, but may be an avenue to investigate