altprinting

Salt Prints

It’s been a busy week here in quarantine-land! Jakob (my son, now a 9th grader) is in a one-week mini-course exploring experimental photography. Since we’re

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Dry plate tintype developer, redux

Apologies for this being a little rambling and unfocused – this has been sitting in my queue since 2016! Time to pull together the details

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Printing Casein on Glass

In the last few days I’ve gotten two questions about printing on glass. What a fantastic coincidence! It must mean it’s time to write about

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Boy’s Room

Also taken this spring: gold-toned kallitype on arches HP 140#. Shot with a Mamiya 7, HP5+, developed in Xtol.

And this is gold toner #2 at the end of its life. Initially, toning happens very quickly – perhaps 3 minutes for the first shot I posted. This shot toned for 15 minutes and, as you can see, took on a more sepia characteristic. This is the same 250mL of toner as the previous two, and I believe this was the fourth reuse of that toner. All three of these are 11×14.

I …[more]

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Schuylkill

Taken this spring; Philadelphia, looking north from the Chestnut St. bridge. Gold toned kallitype on Arches HP 140#. Shot with a Widelux FV and Delta 3200, developed with Perceptol.

This gold toning is about the third reuse of 250mL of gold toner #2, toned with the same batch of toner as yesterday’s print. Development was identical between the two. The color has shifted slightly warmer and is still very effective at both preserving the print (replacing silver with gold) and changing …[more]

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Erik and Hedy

From this year’s Kensington Kinetic Sculpture Derby: Erik and Hedy of Frank’s Kitchens. Gold-toned kallitype on Arches 140# HP.

Another aspect of my experimentation during PrintFest was control over the toning characteristics of reused gold toner. Straight gold toner (gold chloride and citric acid) form a good, but not great, toner that can tone prints purple if used in sufficient concentration. Lower concentrations tend toward a cold black. But the toner has a short shelf life once …[more]

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Francean Fanny

From the PA Burlesque Festival on June 30th: Francean Fanny. Selenium toned kallitype on Arches 140# HP.

I have no idea what the dot is; something got on the paper that didn’t belong there. I actually like this print cropped as a square and expect that if I frame it I’ll just crop that part out. But as a learning piece from my week-long PrintFest: no streaking from fumed silica; successful selenium toning without substantial staining. This is …[more]

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Fan Dance

From the PA Burlesque Festival, June 30th: Donna Touch. Selenium-toned kallitype on Arches 140# HP.

Continuing down the selenium road: this is about 20 minutes of selenium toning, after having pre-fixed for 2 minutes. It’s a touch more brown than I wanted, but it’s in the ballpark.

There’s also some slight streaking evident in the print once you get up close to it. Each of these sheets of paper were coated with fumed silica (Aerosil 380, to …[more]

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John

John, of Frank’s Kitchens. Selenium toned kallitype on Arches HP 140#.

I’m understanding selenium toning a little better as a result of this week’s PrintFest. Selenium and Kallitypes don’t get along very well generally. And now I understand why.

The sensitizer for kallitypes is Ferric Oxalate and Silver Nitrate. Usually, conversations about failures with kallitypes center around the ferric iron being reduced to ferrous iron from exposure to UV light – but with selenium ton …[more]

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Madame Corsetiere

It’s only Wednesday, but I’m already exhausted! I’ve been printing all day every day this week: 8 hours on Monday, 7 Tuesday, and 10 today.

Monday was about experimentation: trying to improve the quality of my kallitypes on Stonehenge paper (trying to reduce my cost per print, since my preferred paper is handmade and imported from France); using fumed silica; working with different developers; experimenting with selenium toner for kallitypes. No good prints came of it. The prints got …[more]

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Joe

Continuing in the “Frank’s Kitchens” series: 9 layers of gum, featuring Joe hard at work. I think I may print another layer here; I’m not quite satisfied with the color balance at the moment (which is kinda funny, because I’m color blind). Aah, the trouble with gum prints; I never know when I’m done 🙂

The paper is Stonehenge Warm White.

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John

Gum over cyanotype on a half sheet of Stonehenge Rising warm white paper.

This print is a direct result of a morning of failures last week. My cyan pigment wouldn’t stay on the paper – a combination of two different problems related to two variables I changed simultaneously. After three poor prints I decided I would forego the cyan for the morning and use cyanotype for the base layer to get me started.

I miscalculated the amount of cyanotype solution I needed (resulting in the …[more]

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