new paper negatives from rockland AG+ emulsion

i’ve been coating thing with rockland emulsion off and on since i was told about it in 1986.  i had never made the investment in a tube of ag+.  i’ve always been on the poorer side of the street when it comes down to buying “stuff”  so i used the regular old non multigrade emulsion and then most recently someone gave me a tube of their extremely expired VC emulsion.  i am fond of making glass negatives and as you probably have read if you poked around this blog i like making ( or trying to make ! ) ferrotypes and glass positives, the ones made with silver gelatin emulsion, not collodion.  the emulsion that comes with the rockland tintype parlor is the ag+.  it was never enough for me in that tiny tube they provide, so i called bob, the guy at rockland and asked him if i could use the other emulsions ( regular, or vc or ? ) to make the tintypes and he said

“sure!  just coat it thicker because it doesn’t have as much silver as the ag+ ”

so that is what i did for a few years, coated things 2x.

now i am out of the other emulsions ( they sort of crapped out on me and turned useless seeing they were so old ) so i cracked open a bottle of the ag+ i bought on a whim IDK 4 or 5 years ago.  i chopped some out of the tube and double boilered it to melt it and i painted some on some butcher paper with a brush like i always do.  i have a puddle pusher but to be honest i never liked using it, so i never did.  the test negative i made came out terrible.  well, it wasn’t THAT bad, but it wasn’t as good as i had hoped.  i looked at the expiration date on the bottle and it wasn’t too out of date so i coated some more with the same bottle.  this time i used the puddle pusher. and boy am i glad i did !

most of the things i coat tend to have brush marks, sometimes it is good and i like that painterly feel, its something extra, a bonus but after i used the puddle pusher i think i might continue to use it and use it often !  the emulsion spread smooth and evenly, no marks, no problems.  i stuck a cut piece of 4×5  ( its actually 4 pieces of a little bigger than 35mm ) into my trusty old pentax K1000 and made an exposure out the window.  mundane scene, shadow, concrete steps, brick walk, plants.  it had contrast and texture and mid-day f16 iso 1 brightness, so i could figure out what the iso was of this now expired emulsion.

1 second hand held  then into the soup.

i have my caffneol in a big tupperware tub and i have a small one to scoop it out for trays, like a ladle …  seeing i don’t use much besides dektol and caffenol i sometimes have a bit of residual caked on coffee in the small tub.  usually it just dissolves with the caffenol i drain out of the big tub,  ..  i didn’t use the big tub this time.  i poured a little dektol into the container and added about 2x that amount of water.  the coffee dissolved nicely as i stired it a little bit.  the negative went in and i agitated it by flipping it, than by swirling the container and rocking it back and forth.  the image slowly appeared as expected in about 30-45 seconds ..  i developed to completion until i hit the 2 minute mark then into a water rinse then hardened fixer then i washed and hunt it to dry.  i didn’t make a contact print of the small paper negative but i scanned and inverted it.  no photoshop but sizing and inverting.  i have to say i was happy with what i saw.

 

stoop
stoop

i have a handful more papers all coated and ready to expose.

 

Author: jnanian

I am a Freelance Photographer in Rhode Island. I make photographs using a variety of methods with and without a camera, and I teach photography online and in person. I make photo emulsions from scratch, I coat my own photo paper and make cyanotypes too. I am a huge fan of Caffenol ( I helped write the Caffenol Cookbook ) and instead of instant coffee, I roast my own Sumatra Robusta beans. I sell them so you can make your own long lasting, film and print developer called Sumatranol. I also sell silver recovery products.