Ned's photos

Another "direct positive" made from the photo paper that was in my pinhole coffee can camera.

It rained here on Friday and I let this pinhole shot go for 48 minutes to try another direct positive. Blacks came out a bit weak ( I think I pre-flashed the paper double by mistake ) but it looks kinda neat anyway.

I tried to make another "direct postive" using polycontrast paper that expired in 1977. This is fog on the 40 year old paper, but on Tuesday when I made this standing on my back porch, the whole world was white with smoke and I could not see anything beyond those trees. Nothing but worry and fear for the people living beyond that wall of smoke.

Oaks at Crane Creek Regional Park in Sonoma County, California. This is a new direct positive process developed by Ricardo Leite and Joe Van Cleave. You are looking at the same photopaper that was in my coffee can pinhole camera, not an inverted scan or contact print. It uses hydrogen peroxide and citric acid instead of more toxic and dangerous chemicals like potassium dichromate and sulfuric acid. This particular one was made even more safely by using weak 3% hydrogen peroxide like you can buy at any drugstore.

This is a remnant apple tree from orchards that were in our area over 100 years ago. Its trunk is hollow and has 3 big holes in it, but somehow it still hangs on. Many years I've made pies from its apples, but this year it did not manage to grow any. This is a new direct positive process developed by Ricardo Leite and Joe Van Cleave. You are looking at the same photopaper that was in my coffee can pinhole camera, not an inverted scan or contact print. It uses hydrogen peroxide and citric acid instead of more toxic and dangerous chemicals like potassium dichromate and sulfuric acid. This particular one was made even more safely by using weak 3% hydrogen peroxide like you can buy at any drugstore.

I'll always remember making this calotype because of something funny that happened. I'd made 3 calotypes earlier in the day, and each time the sun clouded over or it rained on me ( of course, it was sunny between the times I was making photographs! ). I was leaving the Norsk Folkemuseum for the day when I bumped into another member of our little calotype group, Vidar. Vidar was arriving with his camera and said he was going to make another calotype. I said I thought the sunlight was done, and he said, just watch: when he opens his tripod it will make the sun come out again :) So I turned around and went back to this picturesque corner of "old town" that had caught my eye, and Vidar went off to make his calotype. Sure enough, I set up the camera and then the sun came out and stayed out for the whole exposure, like magic! So this photograph was possible because of Vidar's magic tripod ( not to mention, my camera was mounted on another tripod that he generously loaned me for our time in Oslo ). The building on the left in this scene ( on the right side of the negative above ) is a half-timbered house that was built in the 1600s by Federik Brun, a bookbinder. After multiple disastrous fires, King Chrisitan IV issued an edict that all houses must be made from brick or stone. A less expensive alternative was to fill brickwork in the space between timbers, or "half-timbered", and still resistant to fire. This is Brun's actual house; it was relocated here to the museum. I will try to remember this story correctly: Brun lived with his wife and a large household of children, housemaids and an apprentice bookbinder. When he passed away, his elderly wife married the much younger apprentice and kept the bookbinding business running... and when the wife passed away, the now older apprentice then married a much younger housemaid and they kept the business running. When the old apprentice passed away, his now older wife married his much younger apprentice, and this pattern continued for several generations! This pattern seems astonishing but when you read about how they lived it is more understandable. Trutat variant of a Pélegry calotype on Canson Opalux paper. 5x7 Eastman No. 1, modified Wollensak Velostigmat 4:30PM sunshine! LV ~14, f/8, 7 minutes Development: 30 August Faint image visible at start. 200ml of 0.7% gallic acid, added 2 drops of 12% citric acid and 4 drops of 24% silver nitrate. Looked good after 50 minutes.

Salt print made from calotype . Printed 7 October 2017 Strathmore 500 plate finish drawing paper 1% kosher salt, 1% NH4Cl, 0.6% gelatin, 0.5% CA. Sensitized w/ 8% CA, 12% AgNO3. Toned with gold borax and SCN.

King Oscar II was king of Sweden from 1872 until his death in 1907, and king of Norway until his dethronement in 1905. His Summer Residence was here on Bygdøy peninsula near Christiania (now Oslo), where he established an "open air museum" in 1881. This circa 1200 stave church from the town of Gol was slated for demolition, but instead was relocated to the museum. In 1907 the open air museum became part of the Norsk Folkemuseum . In the 1980s, Gol decided they missed the church and built a replica some distance from the original site. There is also a replica of this Gol stave church in North Dakota of all places! This view is almost the directly opposite side from Finn's calotype . Trutat variant of a Pélegry calotype on Canson Opalux paper. 5x7 Eastman No. 1, modified Wollensak Velostigmat 3:20PM intermittent light rain. LV ~13 varying, f/8, 28 minutes The sun was out when I selected the view, but disappeared before I started the exposure and it did not come out again. Set up camera in rain and there was light rain during most of the exposure. I put my coat over the camera and hoped for the best. Development: 1 September Faint image visible at start. 200ml of 0.7% gallic acid, added 2 drops of 12% citric acid and 4 drops of 24% silver nitrate. Stopped when stain began to appear in the foreground, after 47 minutes. It was very nearly done ( detail in the 2nd floor shadow ) and would not have gone more than 5 to 8 additional minutes anyway.

Inverted digi-snap of calotype

Traditional Norwegian farmstead at the Norsk Folkemuseum with "torvtak" turf rooves. Right after this I got to taste lefse bread made the traditional way on a griddle over a fire, it was delicious! Trutat variant of a Pélegry calotype on Canson Opalux paper. 5x7 Eastman No. 1, modified Wollensak Velostigmat 2:20PM mostly cloudy. LV ~12, f/8, 14 minutes The sun came out a few times and I used a watch to time it. It was sunny on and off for 6 minutes during the 14m exposure. Development: 2 September Faint image readily visible at start. 200ml of 0.7% gallic acid, added 2 drops of 12% citric acid and 4 drops of 24% silver nitrate. Under the safelight, I was not sure that I added only 4 drops of AgNO3... possibly added an extra drop or two. Image came up pretty fast, and I added a couple drops more CA at 5 minutes, Stopped after 35 minutes.

Inverted digi-snap of a calotype

Well, actually it's the first calotype I made in Norway. Also the last one developed. They are numbered in the order they were developed :) This is the fortress/castle in Oslo. I really enjoyed sitting here for an hour and a half taking in the view. After traveling, it was nice just to sit quietly in one place for a time. The sun was coming and going and during the exposure and they kept changing the white blinds in the top windows! After 15 minutes, they opened them, then at 40 minutes they closed the blinds on two of them and partly closed the other 3, then at 1:15 they adjusted them all again! Would have been nice to stop down a lot more, but it was already a long exposure! Trutat variant of a Pélegry calotype on Canson Opalux paper. 5x7 Eastman No. 1, modified Wollensak Velostigmat 10AM mostly cloudy. LV ~11, f/11, 90 minutes The sun came out a few times and I used my watch to time it. It was sunny on and off for 16 minutes during the 1:30 exposure. Development: 3 September Faint image readily visible at start. 200ml of 0.7% gallic acid, added 2 drops of 12% citric acid and 4 drops of 24% silver nitrate. Under the safelight, I was not sure that I added only 4 drops of AgNO3... possibly added too much. Image came up too fast, and I added more CA at 8 minutes, but had to stop developing at 14 minutes.

Inverted digi-snap of calotype

Ruins of Hovedøya Kloster, a 12th century Cistercian monastery on the island of Hovedøya in Norway. I asked my daughter to do like Greenlaw* and she is in the window. Some children were playing hide 'n seek and ran through the scene, leaving some "human fog". The only technical differences between this one and "Hovedøya I" are: f/5.6 instead of f/4.8, and 3 minutes instead of 2.5 minutes. But the character of the highlights and soft focus areas are remarkably different. Both used actinic focus correction. * Many believe that it is Colonel Alexander Greenlaw sitting in the window in this calotype . Trutat variant of a Pélegry calotype. 5x7 Eastman No. 1, Replica of Wollaston meniscus 11:30am sun: LV ~14.5, f/5.6, 3 minutes

Salted paper print of a calotype . Printed 8 October 2017. Strathmore 500 plate finish drawing paper 1% kosher salt, 1% NH4Cl, 0.6% gelatin, 0.5% CA. Sensitized w/ 8% CA, 12% AgNO3. Toned with gold borax and SCN. I asked my daughter to do like Greenlaw* and she is in the window. Also some children were playing hide and seek and ran through the scene, leaving some "human fog" in the gap to the left of the tower.. you can mouse over the note to see it a little better. The only technical differences between this one and "Hovedøya I" are: f/5.6 instead of f/4.8, and 3 minutes instead of 2.5 minutes. But the character of the highlights and soft focus areas are remarkably different... this lens has great potential and will take practice. * Many believe that it is Colonel Alexander Greenlaw sitting in the window in this calotype .

This is part of the fortress and castle in Oslo. From near this view, you can see at least 5 different styles of stonework, from different times when the fortress was added to or repaired. I have another calotype that might show it. Turning the other way, you look out over Oslofjord and the waterfront. It is a wonderful place. I returned to this spot 4 different times during our stay in Oslo, charmed each time by the view and the gate, wall and apple tree. This did not come out as I hoped, but it illustrates something about "actinic focus" so I am posting it anyway. I wrote a lot about actinic focus with the inverted copy . This calotype has convinced me that it matters very much. When I realized I'd made a mistake, I came back the next day and tried again . The conditions were not as good ( it was windy and the sunlight failed ) but I think that one will still make a nice print. Trutat variant of a Pélegry calotype. 5x7 Eastman No. 1, Replica of Wollaston meniscus 4PM overcast but bright diffuse sunlight. LV ~13, f/5.6, 12 minutes forgot to correct for actinic focus Development: 28 August Image is faintly visible at start. 200ml of 0.7% gallic acid, added 2 drops of 12% citric acid and 4 drops of 24% silver nitrate. Seemed to come up slowly at first, even though a faint image was visible. That has happened with every one of these. Perhaps the tannic acid preservative needs to be washed off before the development really starts, which makes them seem to start slowly. It was obviously developing after 5 minutes. Stopped at 35 minutes. I waited until I could not perceive the difference between the levels of lighter and darker stonework on the far castle wall by reflected light ( still easy to see the difference by transmitted light ) and there was detail in the shrubbery.

Yes, another fuzzy-wuzzy. There will be a discussion about actinic focus at the Calotype Society soon, and I think this photograph will help. I forgot to make the focus correction on this one. I came back the next day and made one with actinic focus correction , and I think you can understand much of what I wrote below by comparing the two photographs, although the views are not identical and it was windy during the second one. "Actinic focus" means focusing the light the calotype is sensitive to, rather than the light our eyes can see. We can't see UV light, but that's what the calotype sees most. All modern camera lenses are "achromatic" and focus different kinds of light the same. This is an uncorrected lens, so different colors of light are focused differently. To correct this, I should have moved the lens 3 or 4 mm closer to the calotype. After the correction, the ground glass would look blurry, but the image would have been sharp where I intended on the resulting photograph. But first I'm going to make some comments about what I was hoping to do here, and there's something interesting. First of all, about soft focus. This is an un-coated single element meniscus lens. It has all the aberrations. The original calotypists would never have used the lens this way, they would have stopped way down, everything in reasonable focus and minimal aberrations. They would also have corrected for "actinic focus". But there is also a range of more open apertures where the out of focus areas can be quite beautiful -- and it's not really the same thing as what modern photographers call "bokeh". The transition is more gradual and smooth from the in-focus to out-of-focus areas, with more diffusion and glow; more like how a painter would exclude non-subject detail to enhance the subject or provide aerial perspective. When it's done right it can be lovely, but it's also easy to make something displeasing, and it goes against our culturally ingrained aesthetic that everything in a photograph should be pin-sharp ( even though that's not all all how we see and experience the world! ) In this photograph, I was trying to emphasize the near wall and the apple tree on top of it. I was hoping the mixed stonework on the castle wall behind would be softer but still interesting, and I was trying to render the shrubbery in front more diffuse with nice glow. After framing the scene, I used focus and rear tilt to bring detail out on the wall and tree, and really lovely diffuse highlights in the shrubbery. I made two mistakes. First, the building on the right has too many sharp details and high contrast areas, so it became very distracting. I should have moved closer and excluded it. When the soft-focus effects are in the shrubs, it can look pleasing and help the composition. When the soft-focus effects are on that building with high contrast details, it's jarring. But I do have an excuse: it didn't look that way on the ground glass! Secondly, I forgot to make the actinic focus correction. This scene does not look very much like what I composed and saw with my eyes on the ground glass. I had the front wall and gate pretty sharp, and part of the apple tree perfectly sharp ( I wanted the trunk on the right to stand out starkly ). The castle wall behind was a little soft and the building on the right was a little soft, but neither had really strong swirly or blurry areas.. just a little. I was aware the building on the right was a potential problem, but I was hoping it would be okay - mildly out of focus. This calotype appears to be out of focus everywhere, but if you look closely you can see that there is an area of sharper definition in front of the wall. It goes through the stones on the ground ( 6 or 8 feet in front of the gate ) and it cuts through the shrubbery on the right. That's my composition -- the one that included the wall and part of the tree! But because I forgot to correct for actinic focus, it is shifted forward, in front of what it looked like on the ground glass. Now here's something interesting, and I'm not sure if it is just a coincidence or something real. But the area of sharper definition in the shrubs is exactly the area my attention was on for the soft focus specular highlight glow. I carefully maximized the effect to be right there . Isn't that interesting? So when you are looking at the ground glass on the camera, the places where the highlight glow is most defined is where the actinic light is in focus. I guess that makes some sense. TLDR: because I forgot the correction, the place in the scene with beautiful highlight glow ended up being in focus. The places meant to be in focus ended up blurry. The strongest soft-focus aberrations ended up in unintended places, like the building on the right. Actinic focus correction matters a lot! And finally, I want to mention one more thing about trying to make a soft focus calotype. Looking at where the glow and specular effects are on the ground glass is probably useless. Even though I've only made a few, I've seen enough to realize that strong effects on the ground glass disappear on the calotype. Too much of what your eye sees is in red and yellow and orange light that the calotype is blind to. Our calotypes are sensitive to UV, violet, blue and a little green. But there is still some chromatic separation and some beautiful soft focus effects are possible: you can see it in the shrubbery here and in the backgrounds on the Hovedøya calotypes. I think the key will be experience and developing a feel for how the GG translates to the calotype, and that will only happen with practice.

Calo III was a meeting of folks who make calotypes in Oslo, Norway. On this day we visited the Preus National Museum of Photography in Horten. The museum is located at an old naval facility, also home to the maritime museum for the Norwegian Navy, which is why we are posed on a submarine! The Preus museum was wonderful, and we were privileged to view their copy of The Pencil of Nature as well as a fabulous collection of calotypes and salted paper prints. We received a gracious welcome, and had a very memorable day. Trutat variant of Pélegry calotype process. 5x7 Eastman No. 1, modified velostigmat Mostly sunny and bright. LV ~15, f/5.6, 2 minutes Development: No visible image at start. 1.4g gallic acid in 200 ml DH2O. I've stopped using the strong Greenlaw ANS for these and started adding AgNO3 and citric acid separately. I think it provides a little more control and flexibity. I added 5 drops of 24% AgNO3 and 2 drops of 12% CA. Image came up slowly, stopped at 1hr, 5min. Wash 2x10 min., fix 2 x 10 min in plain hypo ( no Na carbonate, and no darkening ), 3 min. in 1% Na sulfite and then 2 x 10 min wash, with a few drops of 20% citric acid added to each change of wash water. The blister problem is not completely solved, but I think they are smaller and less of a problem if the wash water is slightly acidic.