8x10 & 7x11 Lensed

Salted paper print of a calotype . Printed 28 January 2018 7x11 inch image on 9x13 Strathmore 500 drawing paper, plate finish Started exposure facing East away from the sun with a paper diffuser, my daughter and I went to the beach and when we got home the sun was setting. I finished it with 5 minutes under BLB but it didn't print deeply enough to tone well. Toned in gold thiocyanate for over an hour, it did not shift the color much but it did increase contrast and brighten the water a bit. It has a kind of soft light look that reminds me of that morning. I thought I was going to need to re-print it, but I like it just the way it is.

North Wright's Beach on the Sonoma Coast in California. Really beautiful day at the coast, I was in my shirtsleeves. Some of our best days at the beach are in late fall and early winter. Calotype made with Alexander Greenlaw's process. Bright, cloudy. LV 16 brightest clouds, 15 sky, water, beach, 14 near slope. 12m @ f/32 Development, as usual, very faint image at start, 2 scant eyedroppers ANS, came up pretty fast, done after 29m. This calotype has a bunch of problems and I'll be going back to try this again. It was a lovely day but the light was a bit flat, so it wouldn't be a bad thing to try again ( like I need an excuse to go to the beach! :) I don't know what causes the marbling ( in the middle, in the water and sky ) but it happens occasionally. There are a few pinholes, some are small enough to have been caused by dust in the camera, but some are bigger white spots. A few small black spots. And that funny lighter area on the right: I've seen that before a couple times too and it's always at that end of the calotype -- I wonder if one end sometimes doesn't get sensitized enough. Also I'm going to include more of the near beach.

Coast Live Oaks at Ragle Ranch in Sebastopol, California. Alexander Greenlaw's process calotype. 7x11 Eastman No. 2, uncatalogued Wollensak lens. 4PM sun fairly low. LV 10 on trunk, 11 mid-scene, 12 brightest light through branches. 1 hour @ F/16 Development: 1.4g gallic acid in 200ml DH2O. Added 2-1/2 eyedroppers ANS, image was most faintly visible at start, came up normally. Stopped development at 28 minutes. Wash 2x5m DH2O, fix 2x10 minutes in hypo, 3m in sodium sulfite, wash 1.5 hours in changes of RO water. Dried for 2+ days between 3 changes of blotter. I didn't notice any pinholes or black spots or defects on this calotype, which goes along with the idea that they get better after the 1st one goes through replenished sensitizer.

On the Sonoma Coast in California. The rock out in the water on the left is called Arched Rock, the arch goes seaward, so is not visible from this side. This is a nice pocket beach where a small stream reaches the ocean. 7x11 Eastman No. 2, uncatalogued Wollensak lens. f/32 for 24m Light was a little difficult, it was sunny but with morning haze, so hard to know how much UV might be bouncing around. LV 15 water, sky; 14 sand, 13 foreground rocks. Calotype made with Alexander Greenlaw's process. Development: added 2 eyedroppers of ANS to 1.4g of gallic acid in 200ml DH2O. Image was very faintly visible at start, it came up fast and I stopped at 23 minutes. More pinholes and black spots than usual... I had just replenished my sensitizer and I wonder sometimes if it's more prone to some of these problems with fresh acid and silver in it. Dried between 3 changes of blotter for several days. ( digi-snap of reverse side by mistake.. I flipped it back in software but it's not as sharp as the front of the negative )

This is a salted paper print made from a calotype. Printed 17 September 2016. I wish I could get the color right so that you could see it. I fussed around for quite a while but just could not get it to look like the print. The print has a slightly peachy-pink cast and a nice soft light look...nothing harsh at all. I'm afraid it this image does not even hint at the tones in the print. Lana Aquarelle paper, 2% Hawaiian alaea salt, 0.5% citric acid, 0.5% sodium citrate, 1% "superclear" pigskin gelatin. I have a batch of different papers salted with this combination, and every print before this one had some problem with fog. For this print I added more citric acid to the sensitizer and it solved the fog problem, but it did also slow down the printing a bit. It was coated with 12% AgNO3, 10% CA. 2 hours with a paper diffuser, in the shade aimed East away from midafternoon sun. 5 minutes aimed East without diffuser. 90 second blast of straight sun to lock in the darks. Toning: 0.34 g borax + 3.4 ml 0.2% gold chloride in about 80 ml of water for 20 minutes. Then added a scant 1 ml of 2% ammonium thiocyanate and agitated until the first hint of a shift in tone was apparent: 2 minutes. This shifted the tone away from red toward peach and somewhat more neutral. I think it made the highlights ever so slightly brighter too. I'm very pleased with it :) I'm going to attempt to tone a whole series this way -- but not with this salting solution, which was troublesome. I'll try to capture the color better next time.

On the Sonoma Coast in California. In the distance are Mammoth Rocks and the uplifted marine terrace where mammoths may have once roamed. The calotype was starting to curl as I made this digi-snap, but you can get an idea what it looks like. 7x11 Eastman No. 2, uncatalogued Wollensak lens. Greenlaw's process, Canson Vidalon Vellum Calque (from pad) Unexpectedly, the paper shrunk width-wise during preparation, and I had to use a small piece of tape under the rail on one side of the holder. Bright overcast, beach & rocks LV 13, far slopes LV 14, water and sky LV 15. Clouds obscuring distant hills. F/45, 35m. Development: 1.4g gallic acid in 200ml DH2O, no image visible at start. Added 2 eyedroppers aceto-nitrate of silver. Done after 43 minutes. Dried between 2 changes of blotters over 2 days and then left under a 3rd clean blotter for 5 days while I was out of town. Back was touched up with a soft pencil for printing, and the marks are visible in this image, but not on the salt print.

Inverted digi-snap of calotype negative. Mouse over note to view calotype. This calotype had lots of problems, starting with curl that I didn't control when sensitizing, which caused the damaged areas in the sky -- it was my last piece of iodized paper, or I would have started over. Then I thought it was overexposed ( it wasn't ) and I developed it too slowly. After about 50 minutes developing, I realized what was happening and could have fixed it, but put an eyedropper of sulfamic acid into the tray by mistake instead of silver.. and that was the end of developing it! The negative is very red and it is underdeveloped. Anyway, I enjoyed making the photograph and met some nice German visitors while making it. We had a laugh when he held his compact digital camera next to my big view camera. The seagull landed on the rock about 30 seconds into the exposure and posed there the rest of the time :) Even though the photo didn't come out well, it was a lovely day at the coast and I enjoyed the attempt. LV 15 water, 14 sand, 13 rock. 5m30s f/22. As noted above, due to a mix-up with some notes, I thought it was overexposed, and developed it for 50 minutes adding scant eyedroppers of aceto-nitrate of silver several times along the way, wondering why it was coming up so slowly :) I think it still could have been developed correctly if I'd added more silver, but no great loss since it was already damaged and I'm not going to print it. I iodized a new batch of paper today, so will be ready to continue soon!

Back in February when I made a calotype here, I had a regular paper negative on the other side of the film holder. This one was exposed for 1s instead of 12m. Everything else was the same. I like the way the negative looks, mouse over the note to see it.

Salt print from calotype. Calotype had a few spots touched up on back w/ soft pencil. Lana Aquarelle, 2% alaea salt, 0.5% CA, 0.8% gelatine. Sensitized with 12% AgNO3, 6% CA. Bright overcast at start, partly sunny after first 1/2 hour. 1h 25m toward N sky with paper diffusor. 10m facing E away from sun, no diffusor. 2m direct 4PM sun. Toning: 2ml 0.2% gold chloride + 2ml 2% ammonium thiocyanate in about 80ml DH2O. 12 minutes. Followed by: 0.2g borax + 1ml 0.2% gold chloride in about 80ml water, 10 minutes Hard to get the tone right on this digi-snap. It is a little more neutral, but also a tiny bit more toward dark purple in the water. It also looks sharper with more "pop". Printed 27 February 2016