A few recent sun prints using inexpensive Xerox Transparancies.
Usually when people make digital negatives they use fancy printers, spend hours and days profiling their printer and image to look great. I don’t have a fancy printer or the skill to do fancy profiles, so I just invert in photoshop, and take the file to my local copy shop. Film transparencies are about 75¢ each and do what I need them to do.
this first prints were made by a digital overhead transparancy at my local copy shop
originally it was a digital files taken in a snow storm at a local park. one was taken on jamestown island ( the windmill )
a few weeks ago. all 3 of them were made using expired photo paper behind the digital negative and left in the sun by a window
for a few days. i scanned the images and used levels a little bit as i do every scan
sun print blue removed
windmill on jamestown
xerox machinenegative
i made a nice few images using the new emulsion made the other day
a few photograms
fast sun print took minutes!
sunprint
and a waxed negative
suprint made with waxed negative through the back of the paper
a few summers ago i went to quebec
i have wanted to make prints from the digital files, and the other day
i finally got a chance to do it.
the images are from a contact sheet made via photoshop, and inverted
and saved as a PDF file. i brought it to my local copworld
and they made me a handful of overhead transparency images.
i grabbed one and a sheet of expired photo paper put them both into a contact frame and
put them out in the sun. i’ve come to the conclusion the longer the image stays in the sun
the less it will fade when i scan it. after a day or 2 in the sun i peeled the photo paper from the xerox negative
and scanned it. the image is dark purplish brown on the paper, and i barely adjust the levels to bring it to “normal”
my scanner glass is dusty and scratchy so most of my time is spent removing that …
a couple i hand tinted in photoshop the others are as-is.
statue in quebec
hand and bowl
cannons at fortification colored in photoshop
graffiti
old buildings cobble streets
i live not to far from the jewel of new england and have taken up making digital photographs
of the skyline, and soon to be the pre 1950s architecture … and making digital negatives at kinko’s copies i’m not quite sure which i like better small or larger i haven’t made a full 8×10 film negative yet, maybe with the right image it will look nice, as is, i have made contact sheets and 1/2 8x10s the camera has no issue, it would probably work OK even with a cheap cellphone snappy, i’m certain film negatives would look great too.
here is the latest …
sun print digital negative
long view industiral natinal bank
tower of the industrial national bank building
industrial national bank
chimneys and roofs
hybrid xerox negaive
working on a new project i am going to call electric midnight blue it uses a varient of the sunprints i have been making these images were all made today in overcast sun in about 1-2 hours next group will be cyanotypes, and thinking of making them really big down the road .. for now they will be small
electric midnight providence
a couple of days ago i was making some more cyanotypes i loaded up some contact frames with waxed negatives to see if i could get a better print than i did with my old coated paper some of those prints just didnt’ work out .. and at the same time i found an old hand coated paper negative made with the cyclone #3 a while ago, that was just sitting on the tabletop. i had cleaned up quite a bit a week or 2 ago: i swept the floor; i organized; i put things away; i stacked things; i found things i hadn’t seen in a while. the paper negative was a rediscovery, even though it wasn’t really lost. it seems like it was coated on xerox paper, it is thin and durable. not sure what emulsion is on it, maybe foma? maybe my home-brew, not sure. it has a nice contrast and look and i stuck it in the contact frame. the waxed negatives took a ton of time before to expose, so i was banking on a day or 2 in the sun for all 3 of the cyanotypes. it was a lot more diffuclt in late october because the sun is low, and it moves across the sky differently than before, so i had to really follow the sun around with the print frames. i did OK i suppose, but i was more in open shade than i was in the sun, and that is OK too. the print is made from the same classic formula i coated the others with. and after 2 days in the sun i washed it in water and added a little hydrogen peroxide to finish the development, and eventually i painted some areas of the print with dilute washing soda to give a yellowish hue to some areas. anyhow, its the kitchen table and window and chairs. not sure if i am going to add my own colors or leave it, the blue tones of cyanotypes are starting to grow on me.
window table and chairs
classic cyanotype H2O2 to develop out faster as i always do, and a little washing soda to bleach and ad color
there is a bee keeper on the other side of town i like to buy honey from. i usually drive down his drivewaywhich looks like it isn’t really there from the head of the street, but you just make a left and follow the dirt road. you arrive and there are honey bees flying around doing their thing. if i was my younger self i wouldn’t be very happy, i’ve been bitten by bees or yellow jackets and wasps and hornets when i was a kid, and i have a healthy misunderstood fear about honey bees. they just do their thing, its the other “stuff” that want to sting you. just yesterday i was talking with an old friend who told me about how he moved a school desk in his back yard and a cyclone of thousands of yellow jackets came out and chased him inside. he’s the same guy who told me a story years ago, when i mentioned we had yellow jackets flying out of a hole in the ground, he told me about hiking in california or someplace and stopping at an overlook of some sort and he heard the hum of high tension wires / electricity. he looked around and there were no power lines but he noticed yellow jackets coming out of the ground. he was standing on a giant hive … he kind of kept walking and didn’t look back.
anyways, the bee keeper …
i’ve gone there a few times and told friends and family about him. he goes by the name papa roger in case you want some, or want to buy some bees or bee keeping supplies https://sites.google.com/site/paparogersfarm/contact the first batch of honey i got from him was in a big quart jar, and it was black as tar, and amazing. the 2nd batches were in smaller jars and the usual amber color. we’re out now and i have to bring my jars back to papa roger to be re-filled with his local honey. some say that consuming honey is good if you have allergies to pollen, hay fever &c. im not sure if it is true, or not, i just like his honey.
this is one of the jars. i made some cyanotypes from it. i used fresh mixed cyanotype emulsion, the “classic” recipe there are as many recipes for making classic cyanotypes as there are people who make them
the one i used:
50 g. Ferric Ammonium Citrate (8 oz. H2O)
Part B 35 g. Potassium Ferricyanide ( 8oz. H2O)
the blues are deep and dark and beautiful. the cyanotypes i had been making the last few weeks were made with pre-coated paper from 7+ months ago, i could see the difference immediately the fresh coated, fresh made paper is more sensitive to light, and depending on the batch i used the blue can be more intense. the contrast is really high so i have decided to use the sun in open shade if i can for at least part of the exposure and direct sun for part of the exposure, it gives a fuller image. anyways here are 3 honey jars
hydrogen peroxide added to wash water, then a tiny bit of washing soda.
another from a recent slew of waxed negative cyanotypes
waxed negative 2 day exposure
one of the last coated papers from the winter/spring when i coated and coated to use up my sensitizer. the paper is yellowish from being bleached a little bit, maybe 10 seconds with sodium carbonate, but the reverse side of the paper has a clear image as if the cyanotype embedded itself inside the paper. i almost scanned THAT side instead of the actual side i exposed on.
tools of the trade
desaturated cyanotype
the absolute last cyanotypes from last winter/spring,
and a few comments …
pre coated paper lasts a long while but gets slower every day it sits in a light safe. even darkish weirdly colored paper still has some juice left in it and it just takes a little extra time in the sun. waxed prints bleed through the paper but the image isn’t as clear or nice on the other side. #10 envelopes make great cyanotype paper. they are fun to coat and expose on and a great aspect ratio. when they are washed all the glue that holds them together lets go and it leaves you with wings they can be ignored or included in the final piece. this time i ignored them but next time i won’t. cyanotypes are so much fun i almost want to stop using a camera and film and photo paper ! … almost.
as i type this entry i have some more ideas to do with photo paper and hand coated emulsion. ideas that will give me black paper because the black paper i coated bled black dye all in my chemistry, because i dont’ want to deal with black glass, and while i have exposed and processed and re-coated with liquid emulsion regular photopaper in the past i might have stumbled upon something easy and fun to do that doesnt’ require double dipping in photochemistry.
if you have been reading my blog you probably know i have been making chemical free photographs for a few years. you probably know i have designed and sold a handful of cameras that make chemical free photographs and you probably have seen handfuls of scans of these images. some are made on photo paper with a piece of film or object ontop of the paper, like either a contact print or a photogram ( or rayogram )
others have been made using a camera with the lens open for anywhere from 25 or 30minutes to a few hours. i’ve used paper i’ve coated myself with liquid emulsion glass i’ve coated and even metal plates … today i rummaged through my pile of film and film holders and i loaded a sheet of vericolor III into one of my self made cameras and exposed it for around an hour, maybe more, maybe less. the film was originally a pretty high iso (asa) film compared to paper. its iso 160 ( around there ) where paper is anywhere from iso 3 or 6 to maybe around 25 depending on the light.
i figured it wouldn’t need a ton of light to get a good exposure. i set the camera up and got a nice full contrast scene, some lights, some darks and some inbetween tones … i took the film out of the camera and scanned it
long exposed film
after i removed the tone in photoshop the image had a beautiful soft copper tone to it.
inverted, desaturated contrast-tweaked and a little brownish tone added
i have a lot of color film i can’t get processed so this will be a great way for me to use up my film.
they say you dream in black and white
and when you awake your brain puts color to it all.
see previous upload for information
i awoke and saw it all in color …
sometimes i run on inertia,
i just am on autopilot and don’t really stop and think
if i am doing something right or wrong &c.
the colors were added by me using a mouse.
sometimes i put a piece of glass or something out in the sun, on a sheet of photo paper
i did this yesterday with some glass plates i exposed and treated last week ….
====
The Dream
while i lay still at night
on my back with my eyes closed
i dreamed …
i rode through the air on my horse
through the trees and the darkness to the light
there were faces there to greet me
people talked
and pointed
there was a sailor in a cap
watching as the people turned to leaves and blew away
i eventually woke
and wondered where i was.
( click on image to see the whole thing, the thumb nail is clipped )
sometimes i look at clouds, other times i look at prints
i am kind of stuck in hybrid mode these days
part of me is stuck in about 1890 and the other part in 2013 ..
recently i have been hand coating metal and glass plates with liquid emulsion
some were exposed and developed in a special developer to convert the negative image to a positive
( tintypes and ambrotypes ) with wet plate images this is done with collodion spiked with certain salts
which then bind with silver nitrate and are developed …this sort of thing was invented in the late 1850s early 1860s …
what i am doing was invented 20 years later. instead of the silver nitrate ( and salts ) being suspended in a slowly drying
celluloid ( collodion ) that needs to be processed into a photographic image right away when still “wet”, i am using the silver-stuff
that has been suspended in clear gelatin. they are called DRY plates … it is the same silver gelatin liquid that i coat on paper ..
the same emulsion you can make yourself if you want ( it really is easy enough for a college student to do .. i did as a 20 years old at least )
and it is really easy to purchase from a store in a bottle ( liquid light, black cat, se-1 &c ) …
in around 1900 someone discovered a way to invert the image to make a positive … street photographers capitalized on this making instant portraits and post cards ( developing tank under + attached to the camera ) … and you can still do this today with the rockland colloid tintype kit
that is what i am using at least because the recipe for the developer is an unknown …
some plates are tintypes i made, some ambrotypes
and some are hand colored ( using photoshop )
last xmas i received a folding camera as a present. i made a series of rubbings and then cyanotypes from them.
a lot of folks make cyanotypes and the photograph is the end of the end of the process.
i bleached and painted and crayoned and had a little more fun.
hand worked folder, back inside, front
over the past few months i have been using paper negatives instead of film, and making photograms
when i make cyanotypes. in other words, instead of using a film negative and making a contact print
or just putting objects on the paper to record their shape and or shadow, i have used paper, and charcoal
and made rubbings. the first photographic negatives were paper negatives, and they were usually waxed
before they were printed as a positive / salt print. while i have the materials to make salt prints
( paper sized in salt water, smeared with silver nitrate and exposed to UV and BLUE light to make a photograph )
i am making cyanotypes. an IRON not SILVER photographic process that uses 2 chemical compounds
which when mixed together are sensitive to light. then the paper is washed in regular old tap water,
iron rinses out and the print is deep blue in color. most of the time i bleach the blue, so the image isn’t so … blue
and i paint or use crayons to color the images by hand.
rather than making rubbings of things i have close by … parts of doorframes, tables, cameras, floor tiles &c
i chose to take an image or two that was taken with a digital camera. i reversed it to turn it to a negative, and had it printed onto xerox paper.
i waxed the paper and used it as a negative …
these are a few of the prints i came up with ,,,
waxed, painted bleached
bleached cyanotype, waxed negative
bleached, waxed negative
