Aversley Wood Lith: Creative Enhancements

I went looking for another image in the back catalog to try some of my recent lith work on. The one I settled on was one taken on a foggy day (Fog seems to fit these techniques well where contrast manipulation is difficult with multi-grade papers.) 

This one I never successfully printed. Taken across a field from the edge of the woods, the fog was so thick as to almost render the trees invisible from that distance. When I was there the edge of existence seemed compelling. In a print it amounts to a lot of white paper except for the foreground. 

Scan of negative

The scan above has the contrast tweaked quite a bit in curves.

After composing and focusing (a grain focuser comes in real handy here) I started by setting the aperture according to my Ev (@ISO 100) of 3 rule as measured in the fog. This left the trees around Ev 4 and the field in the foreground around Ev 5. This gave me f8 for 32 seconds though most I printed at f5.6 at 16 seconds which is the same exposure but just a little less time spent waiting. If I have dodging and burning to do I can go back to f8 to give me more time to do things. 

Creative Enhancements

I was pleased with earlier efforts to manipulate the print to achieve more mood as explained here...  (My justifications for this kind of work I discuss there as well.) 

In this case I was intrigued by an accident where part of the paper on a couple of prints was left out of the lith developer for a brief period of time while I attended to something else. In both cases it was a short period of time, but it changed the images noticeably and for the better I thought. As a result, one object of this session is to try and use this delayed development intentionally. (the paper is warped with age and so does not always slide easily under the developer which is only 1 liter in an 11"x14" tray. 

On the original prints I used hot lith and consequently the paper did not need to be out of the developer for long. 

The conventional look of this image. 

Delayed development.
The lighter area showing in upper right corner looks like the sun coming through the trees.

Delayed development.
Darker (more developed) wedge in lower right corner creates illusion of light streaming through forest. 

Initial Prints

I would start out with Oriental Seagull #3 8x10 prints and Moersch EasyLith. I found out that this image is incredibly delicate to print and get the best separation of the shadows and highlights. Getting the exposure exactly right is crucial. Too much overexposure results in the sky picking up as much density as the trees and the trees getting lost in a mass of dark tone. 

The maxim of reducing overexposure to increase contrast comes into play here. I also had to be careful to burn the sky in the right way. The treetops have slightly more density than the bulk of them and so some gradually burning from the top down can be helpful. Again though, too much and the sky starts to develop at the same time as the trees. This is all due to the difference between the trees and sky of a stop or less. This also means the print develops so quickly that this differentiation can be missed and so I used a cooler heated developer than normal as the snatch point passed too fast otherwise.

The consequence is there is a range of different images. I started by just using my finger to cover a portion of the print. I wanted to imitate the 'Moon and Ten Pence' idea of a false sun or moon in the image using delayed development. I reckoned that only about 15 seconds was needed, and this proved to be correct. Very little time of depleted developer is required to achieve the result. I would say the overall development time was about 2 minutes at the developer temperature I was using, and 10-15 seconds was enough time to sufficiently whiten that portion of the image. 

I merely waited for the image to just start to appear then pressed my index finger to the paper pinning it to the bottom of the tray for 15 seconds. It is important to keep agitating the developer over the paper so the rest of the development proceeds. I then lift my finger and agitate until it is time to pull the print. 

First attempt to use my finger. 

At this point I am playing with the position of the moon as well as trying this as a technique. The image is faint enough in the early stage of development that it is hard to judge where the trees are. This first attempt falls down in terms of positioning as it overlaps with the tree which is not right. The upper sky has been over-burned and so is too dark. What you see in the 'moon' is some evenness which I think is kind of like bromide drag or surge marks on film. The developer flows around my finger as I agitate, and it seems to make the development uneven and dependent on the direction of agitation. This will plague the other examples. 

Second attempt

Third attempt

In these subsequent attempts this drag effect is more apparent. It isn't altogether terrible but gives a look that is almost like a comet or that there is a range of densities in cloud rather than uniform fog. 

Another attempt

I tried more random agitation and got the above result which is probably the best overall. The exposure and snatch point are good as well. 

I also attempted to use a small piece of cotton on a stick. The idea was developer in the cotton would help diffuse the edges. This was nominally true but it was very hard to get a good circle shape. I think this technique might be better suited to non-symmetrical shapes. 

Back to Old Tricks

I then went on and tried a different crop and moved the moon. I went for a square crop and moved the moon to the other side. I also shifted from the developer delay back to a sheet of glass and a paper punch moon as I had done originally. 

Here is a photo explaining the setup...

Shadow Fixture Setup

It is basically two pieces of thin plywood glued together into an L-shaped and a piece of glass to sit on top. I mark the glass position with a Sharpie and place the fixture in the same place on the easel each time. The 'moon' is a small circle from a paper punch. Once I have it in the place I want, I mark its position with a Sharpie too. The height of the fixture determines how large and soft the outline of the circle is. 

Here are different versions. These I feel are much better. We expect the moon and sun to be nearly perfect circles. The first two are with the glass at a lower height. The moon is smaller and less diffuse. 

Scan002

Foma Variant 123
(Scan009)

I tried some Foma 123 paper I cut into 8x10 sheets in the last image. This is really intriguing with its grittiness and barest hint of the image. 

Next, I moved to my newer fixture. The 'moon' moved and became larger and more diffuse. 

 

Scan008

Scan007

I think the last two are better in terms of composition and the exposure is good. I suppose the next step will be to try some toning. 

Toning

I tried some different toning. Gold toning managed to cool the tone of the image without imparting much blue. I then tried sepia toning on this and ended up again with real patchiness in the gold toned portions. This resulted in randomly placed and shaped areas that had a nice warm almost salmon tone, but the effect was not natural at all. This was not apparent during the toning but emerged in the washing phase. Again, I had the impression this was due to fingerprints or contact between the prints. It was very frustrating as it ruins the prints but if harnessed it might give some nice tones. I am tempted to perform an entire session on just one print from start to finish and only handle with rubber gloves to eliminate variables. 

I also tried some gradient selenium toning where I slowly (over about 2-3 minutes) immersed the print in 1+3 selenium toner. The idea is to get a change in done and density from the top of the image down. This worked but I followed this with a sepia toning hoping to backfill the gradient with warmer tones. Alas the entire image was made cold toned and lost most of its warmth. 

Selenium gradient and sepia toned.
(Scan007/010)

Selenium gradient and sepia toned.
(Scan008/011)