Tag Archives: pentax K1000

chloro bromide emulsion #2

Jun

2017

its been a while since i made the emulsion i wrote about here
but that isn’t to say it hasnt been on my mind since a year ago january. i’ve been distracted with life and trying to finish off all my film, and making more sun and retina
and cyanotype prints. but this morning i decided to make some more go-juice.

i dont’ really have a recipe that belongs to someone else i follow but i mix and match hoping it will work, this time around here is what i am doing:

120cc water
4g iodized salt
12g potassium bromide
1cc of watered down D72 !
20g hard bloom gelatin

( my last batch was knox gelatin, it worked OK for a little while but eventually the gelatin broke down and made a mess )

i heated up the water and added and stirred all the ingredients so they are mixed and dissolved well. the water i put in a cheap metal pot
and i heated it up on the single burner i use to roast my coffee. when everything got dissolved and well mixed i took the salted gelatin out of the pot
it’s now sitting on the enlarger table. i’ll go back down in a little bit and re-heat it to liquid again as i mix the silver nitrate and water together.

next is the silver nitrate i put on an apron, gloves and EYE GOGGLES and measured 32g silver nitrate and 120cc warm water.
and mixed this until it was completely dissolved.

with the safelight on and the salted gelatin warm i stirred like mad and slowly mixed the silver nitrate into the gelatin.
eyesight is nothing to play with, and silver nitrate will blind you without a second thought. always use eye protection !

anyways i dribbled and mixed the silver nitrate in there and the whole mixture turned white.
i’ll use this as a paper emulsion, so i won’t bother to wash it. i put the ball jar into a locking air tight container
and then in a black paper bag and stuck it in the refrigerator to set.

i have no clue if it will work or not, i’m looking forward to finding out soon !

in a few days i will coat some paper and expose it and post my results

OK it is the next day and i really couldn’t help myself …

the emulsion was put in one of those hinged jars that have a rubber seal, like the stuff you might
have on your counter with coffee beans or sugar or whatever .. the bell jar was inside that .. the whole thing in
a black bag photo paper usually comes in when it is in the box .. i didn’t really trust that the jar i put it in was light proof
so i bagged it when i put it in the little fridge.

the moment of truth ..

i brought the jar to the red room and opened it, and it set ( WHEW ! ) i always worry i didn’t put enough gelatin in there
and it would be a watery mess. it was emulsion alright

i scooped a little out and warmed / melted it and painted it onto some card stock.

its drying now … but when its dry i will rip it in half and hide half of it. i’ll put something on the card and turn the lights on
and make a photogram in some dektol and see if this stuff works. after that i will put s cut piece in my K1000 and make a test strip to determine
exposure times and iso’s. and easy way i usually do is f 11, block the lens off and make a series of 1 second exposures. and develop the strip to see what happens.

OK …

well i realized the watered down 1cc ( if that ) of liquid i added at the end was dektol, not hypo
i hate amber bottles !

i did my first 2 tests and coated some more paper.

the photogram i made i counted to 6 with the room light on and it made a killer photogram.
i handheld a slip inside a camera f2 $ 15 seconds and it looks to be about right.

they are still washing and more paper is drying so i can’t really say for sure what everything is.
i know if in the camera ends up being too tedious i make enough photograms and sun prints it won’t be an issue using this home brew emulsion

make photographs like it is the last time

Feb

2017

by jnanian | 0 Comments

sometimes i make a photograph and it is the last time i see whatever it is i am photographing.

this is a gas station that was on this corner for decades, and it was torn down in 2011 to make way for a new gas station. the new gas station was a giant self service kind of place, it has something like 10 or 12 pumps and a shack in the middle. it has no ” character or charm ” it is just a gas station.

before the station was built i wanted to photograph the old one. i wanted to photograph the building and lights because when they tore it down i wouldn’t be able to remember what was there. i’d eventually forget like most people what it was like how shabby, run down and dirty it was. the gas station wasn’t one of a kind, and it didn’t win any awards for uniqueness, but in this day and age of cookie cutter everything, it was kind of nice to see something that was from maybe the 1940s or 50s, from the last cookie cutter age. this filling station lasted maybe 50 years, i don’t think the new station they put in its place will last half that long.

it will look shabby and run down faster and that’s ok because it really didn’t take as much effort to make. there is no polished ceramic tile, or gull wing lights, its just a least effort gas station. maybe in a few years when it starts to look bad and maybe have some character, i might decide to photograph it.

torn down 2011

Posted in Misc., photographs Also tagged traditional photography |

for some things, thin paper seems best

Jan

2016

by jnanian | 0 Comments

its been a week or two since i mixed up the emulsion,and started playing with it. i’ve come to the conclusion that this emulsion works likes thin smooth paper like the butcher paper that i use thick velum paper i sometimes use for bottled emulsion paper negatives and cyanotypes don’t really provide a good negative for me with this emulsion, maybe it is because i don’t use photo grade gelatin, maybe its because i didn’t coat the paper with gelatin first like a sub layer so the emulsion sits too far in the paper, i’m not sure what it is, but the next coating sesison i do, i will coat more thin paper. i do have some thicker sheets coated, i actually double coated everything to give me better contrast. i get OK contrast but some of the images just don’t work well. i have some that worked well, but my success rate is not very high with thick paper.

ive been doing small test sheets, in a 35mm camera to get an idea of iso, and how the images look. the emulsion is starting to get white and black speckles in it so i have to use it up before it goes bad, and then i will probably use up my bottled stash and make some more fresh emulsion soon after.

a few photographs from my efforts