Processes I learned this week: My goal this week was to check off the two remaining processes on my to-do list and make another series of prints from my pinhole shoot. Goals were accomplished. I tried my hand at hand coloring with both prismacolor pencils and water color paints/pencils, transferred two images using packing tape and began the transfer process with gel medium for an additional two images, and made a vdb print of one of the tape-transferred images and experimented with b&w prints and solarization with the other. In addition, I made a traditional black and white and a lith print of the another image from my pinhole, a shot that was exposed to light in utero by my rough handling of the delicate winding mechanism. As promised, I shot and developed a new roll of film on the Holga, from my excursion to Detroit on Sunday, and made a few more prints. Finally, the line between my courses in darkroom and alternative processes has blurred, and on Wednesday, I successfully solarized one of my Holga prints.
Notes on what I learned for each process, including tips, tricks, recipes, materials, failures, etc:
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Other processes I worked with this week and notes, tips, tricks, and failures.
1. Medium Format. On Monday night I developed my second roll of film shot using the Holga at the Scarab Club and DIA and on Tuesday, I printed this contact sheet:
Then, on Wednesday, I made the following medium format prints. The first one is of a sculpture in front of the DIA. Not sure which version I like better.
The only difference between the two is 2 seconds of exposure time (10 and 8 seconds, respectively, otherwise aperture at 5.6 and contrast at 3.) Scanned and on the computer screen, I prefer the lower image. The kid is easier to discern, and the details on the front of the sculpture give it depth. Perhaps the crop of the first, with the parameter values of the second?
Then, I played around with solarizing a classic Holga light leak shot, taken inside the conservatory at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens. The solarizing technique was developed by a couple of my darkroom classmates. After exposing print, place in developer for 30 seconds, then put in small tray with water, exposed side up, and go to the curtain at the darkroom exit. Expose briefly to light coming through curtain, but not to full light outside. Then hurry back and put print in developer and pull it out when image is at desired stage (snatch and grab like lith.) Then put in stop and fixer and rinse as usual.
My first attempt didn't quite work:
My darkroom teacher suggested that I pull it out of the developer earlier, so I gave it 25 rather than 30 seconds on the second try. I also was braver about the light exposure, walking to the far edge of the curtain where direct light comes in. Not only did my second attempt result in a light/dark flip in some of the highlight and shadow areas, but it also produced sabottier effect (light outline against dark background) along the ridges of the leaf. Success!
2. Hand Coloring. First, using prismacolor pencils, last Saturday, I drew in Coco's blue eye over my failed attempt at combining cyanotype and vdb a few weeks ago, where the cyanotype print almost completely washed out of her eye region.
Second, I added a psychedelic watercolor overlay to another so-so old cyanotype of Coco. Got frustrated with one section that was marred by the cheap water color paint that was purportedly yellow but actually a garish orange, which I then turned into a hole in the paper. To fill in the hole, I placed a cyanotype print of her blue eye behind it.
3. Image transfer.
a. Tape. Using Duck brand clear packing tape as described in a post long ago, I made two image transfers. The first one is of a stock image of a moray eel that was printed out on my home computer ages ago by my husband Eric as a model for a ceramics sculpture, and has been subsequently lying around the house. First, the transferred image with a white background:
Now, what to do with this beauty.... First image is of the transfer placed against a fish tank:
Eric was worried that it might scare the current inhabitants of the tank, Bella the Oscar and her sidekick Loach. On the other hand, I think aquarium wallpaper is a cool idea for positive tape transfers. Love the sunlit illumination and the interplay between the background noise of the transfer image and the algae. Sadly, Algernon the algae eater passed away a couple of years ago, so most of the tank is covered with algae.
On Thursday, I played around in the darkroom. First, a regular contact print, except the negative is a positive. There must be a vocabulary term for this.
Then, I tried to solarize twice and was not happy with results. Might scan and post later. But the consensus is that the above print is the most dramatic of the three.
With two other images from Eric's moray eel project, I started gel medium transfer process. These are still drying. Will update with results next week. Might also try my hand with direct transfer onto either wood or glass. Inclined to do glass, as I have several small rectangular glass samples that I picked up from Scrap Box a month ago.
Finally, I could not resist one final tape transfer, this time of a wonderful old picture of Eric from his high school days. I used this image as a basis for my life drawing 2 surrealistic masterpiece last semester (should post this, along with scan of original photo), and had a few photocopies with jettisoned ideas and notes lying around.
The transferred image, against an brown envelope backing:
Then, at lab on Thursday, I made a VDB print of this.
4. Pinhole. Three prints made of one image of Coco sunning herself in front of two chairs and a clay hippy outdoor stove in my backyard, made with the pinhole, and exposed to an inadvertent light leak. Note the snakeskin pattern on the right, which I believe was made by scraping emulsion while advancing film in this primitive camera.
First try, black and white print, aperture 3, 20 seconds, contrast 2.
Then took contrast down to 1.5 to get details in the highlights on her face, and increased the time to 24 seconds to get darker blacks, as per Tim's advice.
Next, the lith developed version:
As with the pinhole prints last week, my favorite this time is the lith.
5. Bonus. A mysterious letter arrived from Berkeley, CA on Thursday afternoon just as I was leaving for open darkroom lab. The letter contained seven medium format negatives. Made the following contact sheet:
And a cropped print of the artistic in-camera double exposure:
6. Field trip. On Friday, I visited Muskegon with two of my darkroom photography classmates, Rob and Magdalena. We took in the Edward S. Curtis exhibit at the Muskegon Art Museum, and went to the beach.
The following images are of a large format camera not unlike the one used by Curtis to shoot his 14x17 (!!!) negatives. Note my classmates in the background for a sense of magnitude.
The exhibit was beautiful and extensive. It was so exciting to see so many images printed in such rich shades of golden brown. Curtis loved to experiment, and the exhibit had one of his orotone prints of a portrait, in which he used banana oil as part of the emulsion. It was juxtaposed with a print made using his typical sepia toned process. The orotone softened the shadows abutting highlights relative to the sepia tone, giving the print a more painterly look. Unfortunately, I did not snap a shot of these images, so you will have to trek to Muskegon this summer to see it for yourself!
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