Fen Drayton Fog Lith Prints: Part III

The next, and probably last of this series of Lith prints using images from Fen Drayton. Actually, these were taken on the same day though each is at either end of my commute. The first is on the Ouse River near St. Ives while the second is past the reserve out on some farmland. 

Again, I mixed a batch of EasyLith developer (The last! Wolfgang is sending more as I type this.) as outlined before and microwaved it for three minutes before proceeding. The challenge here again was the uneven development in the darker reflection to gauge the snatch point. 

For this print of three trees on the Ouse I settled on a 16x9 composition which is a movie screen format but also works for making a mild panorama. On 8x10 paper this works most closely to 9x5".

scan009
f8.5 16 sec Ev 3.1 water

This one had decent separation of the tree branches. The lighter upper and lower edges of the print may want some burning.

scan010
f8.5 64 sec 32 sec burn above horizon 16 sec below tree reflection Ev 3.1 water

Above I performed the burns to even out the exposure. It was helpful but perhaps not enough. 

scan011
f8.5 32 sec Ev 3.1 water

This was one where the development got away from me a little. The big tree reflection has lost definition. 

The next batch of three prints I started with balancing the development of the Ouse River scene. As promised in the previous post I wanted to try the sea salt lith developer. I added 20g of salt to 100ml of hot water and added this and 10mg of 10% sodium sulfite solution. Since I was out of developer the sulfite would have to suffice in reactivating the developer.  

scan012 photoshop borders
f8.5 64 sec

This was testing the assertion from previous experience that the salt would help slow and even out the development. It seemed to not have much effect as the infectious development proceeded as before. I did note a yellow cast in the emulsion in the borders. This is not apparent above as the borders here are Photoshopped. My initial experience with this however, had about twice the amount of salt. 

scan014-natural borders
f8.5 64 sec burn upper section 32 sec burn very bottom 16 sec

Here I attempt to balance the exposure by burning from the horizon up and the very lowest band at the bottom of the print. 

scan013 photoshop borders
f5.6 32 sec dodge field 26 sec Ev sky 3.1 5.6 field

Finally, a new image. I composed this square and centered the tree using a 3x3 grid to place and size the tree to emphasize the symmetry of the square composition. Again, development with the salt developer did not seem to affect the development. 

I dodged the field in the foreground as it would be quite dark otherwise. It is remarkable to me how much detail emerges in the forest behind the tree. The image is quite effective this way. 

Now this is the end of useful images. I may make some toned versions next.