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.
ive traced my roots in photography, to the 1920s i think. my values seem to revolve around people like the dadaists and rusian constructavists and surrealists more than
the new traditionalists of today. while some of my contemporaries seek untouched lands they can transform into an emotion filled black and white or color terrestrial view, or a portrait that shows honesty, i have veered left into what has been a fun ride.
while i enjoy looking at terrestrial views and i love making portraits lately, at least i have found a new interest in sketching ( doodling? ) on paper and transfering that drawing onto hand made photo paper.
the drawing is made on regular old thin xerox/copy paper, and waxed with paraffin to make semi translucent. the receiver paper is made with an under coat of hand made emulsion ( see previous posts ) and a top coat of foma liquid emulsion … they are not developed out in the darkroom but left in the sun so the image on the paper burns itself into the photo paper
the dark image with white lines is then scanned and sometimes inverted, sometimes left as is, and color added to give the image dimension. in my days learning how to render and architectural drawing this would be like doing a sketch and adding watercolor to the top.
enough talking about it …
here is one i did recently .. another is being exposed as i type this ..
sketched, waxed printed
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
aside from sending rolls of 110 or 127vp to the local drug store or fotomat, or mail away to yorks i processed my own black and white film. when i was in high school i learned about developing film, and putting the developed, procesed black and white negatives into those plastic sleeves. for the better part of 10 years i put a sheet of photo paper under the developed film and exposed it in a bright light for a few seconds, and then into the developer and fix and wash like a lot of people, contact sheets were my go-to way of viewing negatives after they were shot, processed and ready to print.
i’d look at the sheets, and circle or “X” the views to print or not to print, and keep track of things. in some cases the contact sheet is all i have left after i had a flood and a bunch of my best negatives turned to clear film / emulsion soup. as time wen ton for some reason, maybe it was becasue $$ was scarce and i wanted to save my paper for prints, or because so many of my exposures were all over the place that a contact sheet would only show part of the story, or maybe i just got lazy, and stopped making contact prints. i got good at looking at the negative and seeing the print reversed. i saw the contrast and somehow decided it was good enough.
i miss making contact sheets, but unfortunately 27 years worth of procesed film to make contact sheets of ,or 4×5 or bigger negatives to make contact sheets of is a daunting task and i would rather not bother. back in the late 90s i bought a umax1200 scanner and it was fantastic. it did everyting i needed, and i think i still have it in a box. it was nice becasue i could scann all size film upto 5×7. and i started scanning film instead of making contact sheets and it worked out as a good compromise.
i use a couple of nikon digital slr’s as well as film, they aren’t new but a d100 and d200, they do what i need them to do, and i like that. when i make a bunch of exposures i still make contact sheets of them believe it or not, sometimes they are postiiveprooof sheets, and sometimes they are negatives. today i wandered around the streets or providence ri, and have plans for digital negatives. i worked on the frames and turned them into contact sheets to bring to the xerox shop. im not a machine gunner, i don’t click and look except once in a while to make sure the meter was working. the camera is set to 1 frame at a time and i take my time as if i am using a film camera. if i had a film camera i would have shot just as many views and sat on the curb or stone wall to unload and load the camera and maybe i would have runout of film. i’ll be heading out to staples tomorrow to see what is what. my local copy shop charges 10x what staples charges for regular copies, so whilei want to support my local shop im not that rich. i’ll be getting paper as well as OHP film to see if there is a difference and making cyanotypes soon.
walkabout
walkabout
walkabout
walkabout
walkabout
walkabout
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.
just made a handful of cyanotypes lately using paper coated and left in a light safe in a humid basement for the last 7 or 8 months. the paper was not the best but it worked (sort of) made some photograms ( some i watercolored ) i made a contact print with a waxed rubbing and tinted it in photoshop and i also converted some digital images into black and white negatives on xerox paper and waxed and printed them.
i have some more negatives to print and cyanotype paper to use up before i mix new.
rubbing waxed negative
photogram, watercolors
photogram, watercolors
photogram, watercolors
waxed paper negative
waxed paper negative
photogram, watercolors
as usual most of my work is on imagekind ( jnanian.imagekind.com ) feel free to browse. through the end of september
i will be donating a portion of every purchase ( 70% ) to relief efforts in louisana.
