Ned's photos

At Ragle Ranch in Sebastopol, California. Pinhole paper positive made by reversal process using safe chemicals.

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.

This is where I went on Sunday to make a calotype... after this the layer of fog sunk even lower and enveloped everything. Weather forecast was to clear by noon, but it never did. I waited around for about 4 hours, hiking around on different beaches, then headed inland to where the sun was shining and made a calotype of some oaks instead. Near sunset I could see that it was still foggy out by the ocean. Spending 4 hours on the coast is wonderful, and it was good to do something a little different... all in all it was an excellent day. There will be a calotype from this viewpoint eventually... ( yes I used a digital camera :)

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 )

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