Creativity: Serendipity or Intentionality

I set about making a study by re-photographing some trees in the fog. As part of this I decided as I often do to print some of these images. These negatives are a challenge as they lack any significant contrast. This project reinforced my belief that spending time on a challenging problem can lead to unexpected yet satisfying results. One has to be open to following where the process leads, dead-ends and all.

The second installment in this series is here...

Here is a summary of a many days long processes where I will cut to what I think are the best results. I have more detailed discussions of each stage here...(links may not be live immediately)

Conventional Print Details

Lith Print Details

I started making conventional prints. My aim was to stick to a theme of ‘ma’. It is not possible keep the fog white and the trees dark. So I biased towards white fog. I managed a couple of versions in Ilford Art 300 paper and Ilford FB Classic. They are here...

Ilford MG Art 300

Ilford MG FB Classic

I did try to extract more contrast through filtration and a change in developer but to no avail. This led me to consider lith which I haven’t used in years. I have never been a big fan of lith. I haven’t been happy with the inconsistent results and frequent flaws in the images. These are of course what attracts so many to the process. Lith also has very long development times. Ten minutes is often considered quite short. 

Lith Developer

Lith developer is a very low dilution developer. The paper is over-exposed by 3-4 stops and then developed. Unlike conventional developer, lith is not developed to completion. Rather the print is inspected and ‘snatched’ from the developer and plunged immediately into stop bath at the ‘right’ moment. This is crucial as lith developer has a special characteristic which , when used with the right emulsion, is called infectious development. Infectious development is a phenomenon where at a certain point the development accelerates rapidly.  This starts in the areas with highest exposure and proceeds rapidly. This is why timing is crucial and part of the reason why the results are so variable. This is also how the higher contrast can be achieved. 

Lith can also rescue old papers because the developer is dilute and has lots of restrainer, the fog normally associated with older film is suppressed. 

I tried lith printing the Ilford FB Classic and Ilford Art 300 but the results were not great. The FB Classic does not show the infectious development. The MG Art paper had infectious development which encouraged me but the olive green color and mottled look wasn’t attractive.

This lead me to recall I had purchased some Fotospeed brand Lith paper years ago. I had used it once before so I dragged it out and I am glad I did. This paper was made with an emulsion meant to work well with lith developers. It is old so there is always concern with fogging and other problems. The first prints were full of problems but I managed to get the exposure and developer to get me to decent high contrast work. Infectious development help drive up the contrast as it raced through the tree trunks and foreground. 

The results were very pleasing. It surprised me how much I liked the lith results. Here are these results. 

Fotospeed 6

These are really lovely images with a warm glow as if the sun is rising behind them. I am now sad to realize how little of this paper I have left! 

For context of how dramatic the contrast increase I have put the conventionally developed image alongside a lith version. 

Conventional vs Lith developed images

Next I broke out some Oriental Seagull paper. This is another old paper I bought for lith purposes years ago. I tried it a few months ago as a normal paper but it is quite fogged. Lith doesn’t care though. These are more tame in terms of color but once I got the exposure dialed-in I again got enhanced contrast. Here they are... 

Seagull 3

They have a nice subdued taupe color which is quite a change between cold blacks, brown sepia, or iron blue tones of the past. 

I tried to spice the palette up a little with some toning experiments on the Seagull paper. I used combinations of selenium and sepia toning on some darker prints not shown above. I present them here side by side. There are more details in my lith article in this series about how I got these results. 

Seagull 1 Plain lith left and toned version right

Seagull 2 Plain lith left and toned version right

I continue to explore small improvements in these prints, different papers, but I will also move onto one or two different images as well. 

Finally I managed to iron blue tone a Fotospeed lith and a Seagull lith. I have laid the two photos side by side again to see the change in tone. Both were toned for 60 seconds in 5+5+15+5 (500ml) Moersch MT4 Iron Toner. Fotospeed 6 I soaked in weak ammonia to bring back blue from cyan. 

(The second installment in this series is here...)

Oriental Seagull 3 Lith (left) and Iron Toned (right)

Fotospeed 6 Lith (left) and Iron Toned (right)