Tapestry

  As usual at the weekend i had a bit of time to myself as Jess was working the morning shift (got to love that morning shift)!  What better way to spend this time than by dabbling in the ancient art of printy?!  I was in a very lith mood so i chose a negative from my latest roll of film and picked a paper.  As mentioned previously i recently won a bulk load of paper on EBay, mostly old Agfa Brovira and Portriga, but i also got a small pack of 8 x 10 Fotospeed Tapestry.  Is it lithable?  Internet says yes as does the good old Facebook lith printing group.  A bit of reading in Lord Rudman's lith and toning books revealed this to be a very special paper.  It liths very well and when toned in selenium a wide range of colours are available.  I got set up and gave it a try... and what a paper!  A lovely textured base with a nice matt finish, it liths fantastically and (as we will go on to see) is phenomenal in Selenium.  This is the print i finally got at the end of the process:

  As you can see it has a very different look to my usual lith prints.  It looks (to me at least) like a watercolour painting.  The colours you can get from this paper in selenium are fantastic, but instead of me talking about it - i have pictures!

  The first print i made of this messed up because i ended up putting finger prints all over the paper.  I decided to use this print to see how far the colour change in selenium would go.  What follows is a series of pictures (taken on my camera phone - sorry for the poor quality of some of them) from 0 to 23 minutes taken every 60 seconds to demonstrate the colour changes.

  Firstly here is the original, untoned print:

Untoned, wet print (note the golden yellow colour - when dry this turned a strong pinkish colour)

30s - note the shadows immediately turning a cool purplish colour

1:30 shadows cooling off further and working up to the lower midtones

2:00

3:00 midtones starting to be affected.  Hints of purple can be seen around the boats cabin

4:00 nice separation in the cabin area and increased separation in the sky

5:00

6:00 purple tones taking over the midtones now and moving up towards the highlights.  The sandy foreground taking on a cooler steely grey tone.

7:00

8:00

9:00 cloud separation reducing slightly as the cooler grey moves towards the purple areas

10:00

11:00

12:00

13:00

14:00 the cool grey now slowly turning into a soft creamy buff colour

15:00 as the creamy colour is taking over cloud separation has reduced significantly

16:00

17:00 shadows have a slight olivey brown tone

18:00

19:00

20:00

21:00

22:00

23:00 the cream has settled into a pale creamy grey colour across the print

  As you can see the print goes through many different colour changes before settling down at around 20 minutes or so.  My plan now was to give an overall toning in selenium to get things going then wash the print and, using a paintbrush, place selenium onto the areas i wanted extra toning on.  I started with the sky so as to increase separation between the purple and yellow areas, then i toned the foreground to change it from the cool grey to a sandy yellow colour.  Then i did a little extra on the cabin and prow of the boat to help it stand out from the frame a little more.  I think the final print looks much better with these multiple pastel colours than it would with just one overall tone.  But maybe that's just me.  One thing that i should mention if you should be lucky enough to come into ownership of this paper is that it dries a different colour.  For exmaple - here is my final print when wet:

And here it is dried out prior to toning:

  As you can see we've gone from yellow to pink.  Not quite what i fancied for this print but maybe one to kkero in mind for another subject.

  I'm sure this "toner painting" could be just as easily applied to any other paper.  You probably won't get as much of an extreme colour shifting but you may get something.  It's certainly something i'll be keeping in mind to try out in the future.

A Reasonable Excuse For Being late?

  On Thursday Jess was working the morning shift, so what with her being lazy unable to drive it fell to me to drop her off.  A quick ten minute journey and i was back home with an hour and a half to kill before i needed to leave for work.  Plenty of time to fire off a quick lith print, yes? Yes?  Well, no not quite.

  Everything was all set up from a session a few days earlier butt he print had turned out to be a dud.  I was using old Agfa paper i had won on Ebay and it had developed very unevenly (which can sometimes be pleasing but in this case wasn't).  I decided to use my ample morning time to make another print, have some breakfast, have a wash and then head off to work satisfied in the knowledge that i have had a fruitful morning.  I started the print but ten minutes in noticed a thicker, darker band running across the centre of the print.  I ditched it and exposed another sheet.  Guess how long it took to develop... 20 minutes?  Half an hour?  No... 56 minutes!  Talk about slow!  I guess next time i use this paper ill try a stronger solution.  The problem now was that i had 5 minutes before i needed to be out the door.  Right, lock the shed, leave the print under the wash, brush my teeth, no time for a shower, deodorant on, clothes changed, hair and beard combed, shoes on, tap off, print drying, out the door, in the car, on the road!  In the end i arrived at work 2 minutes earlier but it was a push.  What do we learn?  Never try and lith on Brovira paper within the space of an hour!

  Anyway, here's the print.  I like the softer lith look this paper has given (compared to Slavich Unibrom).  I haven't experimented with toning it yet so not sure how it will react. I'm sure ill be doing some toning on it soon though so i'll let you know how it goes.

Introducing... Slavich Unibrom!

  During my recent order from my usual photo supply store i got a 25 sheet pack of grade 3 Slavich Unibrom.  This is currently the only true lith paper being made since Foma altered their emulsions some months ago.  Whilst the Foma papers still work in lith they no longer give true infectious development so, alas, do not count anymore... not that i'll stop using them though!

  I had seen from my internet research that Unibrom is a hard paper to tame.  Little did i know!  Normally i can get the print i want first or second try when it comes to lith.  I only just got it on my third try with this paper!  My first print went black very rapidly and my second was way too pale.  The infectious development on this paper is ridiculous!  I am used to developing times of around 20 to 45 minutes when in lith but with Unibrom i was snatching at around 5 minutes!

  The paper itself is lovely.  It has a glossy finish that isn't too in your face but gives a lovely sheen, and with it being double weight it has a nice thickness to it that is a joy to handle.

  Im looking forward to using it some more but ill definitely have to make sure i choose the right subject.  This paper gives a very graphic look, almost like a charcoal sketch that could look horrendous with the wrong negative.  It's definitely going to take some experimenting to get the best from it.

A Holiday from Holiday

  For the first time since i left work last Friday i managed to get away from the family days out to do a quick hour of shooting.  I met up with one of my shooting pals Paul and we headed to Lytham/St Annes beach.  It was windy.  Extremely windy.  Tripod use was out of the question.  We headed down onto the beach hoping to head for the remains of the old pier but alas the tide was further in than i have ever seen it so we had to shoot from afar.  After spending some time messing with assembling my Bronica i finally got some shots in.  The tide was coming in at a ridiculously rapid pace and by the time i had setup my gear and eyed the shot in on my waist level finder i was stood in water.  Metering was a nightmare so i just used my instincts and shot.  I was a bit worried as the strong wind was battering our cameras with sand particles and blowing our gear bags all over the place.  We persevered regardless and shortly moved further up the coast where a flock of birds was sat on the water quite close to shore.  The local dogs chasing them proved to create some nice photo opportunities.

  Shortly thereafter i spotted a partially filled plastic bottle dumped on the sand which caught my eye so i snapped it.  It turned out to be one of the best shots on the negative.

  Our final stop was a little further up the coast where the waves were now smashing against the sea defences.  I sacrificed dryness to snap a few quick shots of the spray coming over the wall.

  The results were a bit hit-and-miss on the developed negative and some shots took a bit of work to get a decent image of but all in all i think they came out ok.  It was nice to be out in some extreme weather shooting on instinct rather than taking my time over each shot and meticulously recording every detail.