This is the first post on a series of attempts to print some of the images I made in the Mathematical Trees Study blog post. This post contains a lot of detail notes of the process a more readable summary of the project is here.
My objective is to explore these images for their potential and also to stretch my darkroom skills. These images in heavy fog are haunting but also a real problem to print. There is such a narrow range of tone there is not really the idea of shadow just different highlights. This tends to mean that want appears an scene evenly lit by the diffuse light is in fact a gradient brightest closest to the sun moving subtly darker away. The negative scan below is not my objective, it just reveals the subtle range of tones. I want to present the fog as white (not gray) and yet have the trees apparent.
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| Scanned Negative |
My first attempt was to try and tease out some contrast on Ilford MG Art 300 paper. This paper is based on a cotton rag watercolor paper so has a strong texture. I ended up printing entirely on the hard #5 filter to try and bring out the subject trees as best I could. I also broke out the Moersch VGT developer to try and boost the contrast. The results are mixed. The hard filter helped a little to keep the fog in the lighter tones from the trees. The developer I think does not have enough difference in exposure to work on so I don't think it delivered much contrast. (In reading Wolfgang's documents and Flickr examples it is also clear I don't fully understand how to exploit this developer as he gets some great results.)
My aim is to have the trees and the ground 'float' in the image without context following on from the original prints of these tress and emphasizing the 'Ma' in the image.
From the negative scan you can see how the fog goes light to dark left to right where the sun is on the left of the subject. I set the exposure and development to keep the fog as light as possible but that gradient creates a problem. This is also reflected in the foreground. I ended up dodging the right side of the print to mimic the gradient on the left and achieve some balance. This is a significant challenge to look natural.
I rediscovered an aspect of the Art 300 paper with thee first prints. With a hard filter exclusively the paper gets a mottled appearance. The texture and filtered light interact in a way that makes the emulsion have an uneven exposure. It can be distracting.
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| Examples of hard filter mottling in foreground and sky |
Next I tried some printers tricks to improve contrast. I performed bleaching in potassium ferricyanide (1+9) for several minutes. This normally disproportionately bleaches highlights over darker tones and thus improves contrast. On these prints it tends to bleach uniformly. I also tried selenium toning with both 1+19 and 1+3.
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Bleach and Tone Test Panel. Clockwise from upper left.
Untouched, selenium 1+3 (3 mins), bleach 5 mins, selenium 1+19 (3 mins) |
As can be seen in the lower right panel the image seems uniformly faded. Selenium helped but the 1+3 gave the usual magenta cast I don't like. So I opted to try selenium 1+19 and some light bleaching.
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Bleach 1 Min, fix, selenium (1+19) 5 mins.
Note bad dodging in right side. |
Next I opted for some selective bleaching as the dodging was not giving me a gradual enough fade on the right. With the tap running I dipped paper towel in bleach and rubbed down areas I wanted to fade out more mostly along the top and right hand side. I wanted to lose any indication of the easel blade edge and have the fog tone gradually fade to white. One has to be patient and careful as the bleach is quite strong and with these subtle tones it is easy to remove too much. I then fixed and toned.
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Selective Bleach, Fix, Selenium (1+19) 5 mins.
Again bad dodging as before. |
This next I tried toning, selective bleach, fix, then toning again. You can see the hard edge too aggressive bleaching caused along the top. If this were not an experimental image I could have redeveloped the image to bring the bleached areas back as a way to get 'do overs'
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Selenium (1+19) 5 mins, Selective Bleach, Fix, Selenium (1+19) 5 mins.
Note overly aggressive bleach on top edge. |
Finally an untreated image this has the best dodging and I will probably apply the bleach and tone techniques to finish it up later.
It is difficult to compare these images as they have different exposures and development times. I concluded there was little that could be done to impact these images much. Selective bleach holds promise for gaining some tone symmetry across the image however I may opt for a gradual exposure left to right across the image to fight that effect on the negative. I quit at this point as the mottling bothered me too much and further refinement I thought would be better on Ilford MG FB Classic with a whiter and smoother paper base.
Ilford MGFB Classic
I next made a couple of images from the same negative this time on the Ilford MG fiber-based Classic paper. It has a much whiter base and smoother matte texture. I developed it conventionally with Moersch 4812 Eco developer. I ran hard and soft filter test strips and found under the hard filter a sharp transition from 45 seconds to 64 seconds where there was almost image at 45 seconds and the fog took on a heavy tone at 64 seconds. I thought perhaps a sweet spot at 54 seconds at 1/4 stop between the two. On the soft filter I manage to find at 22 seconds some definition in the tree trunk with fog remaining light.
My first print confirmed these might work though the image is still quite faint. Recognizing the image darkens from left to right I decided to make the soft filter a burn from left to right. I started about a third of the way in and moved the card to the right over about 11 seconds or one stop. I judged this looking at the test strip tones and comparing to the tone of the fog on the right and see how many more stops of exposure would make it that gray, this was also about one stop. I also opted to flash for 1 second. I could have probably used up tot 2 seconds and still keep the white areas clean.
This worked fairly well but because the burn started over the trees it left them fainter that I would have liked. I made the next print using a card cut to a curve and dodged out the right side of the of the image around the tree for about 14 seconds receding to the right. Again I flashed for one second. This was a little darker so more satisfactory.
As with the first prints I did some selective bleaching to lose the sharp edge created by the easel on the top. and right edge. I used a paper towel dipped in bleach and dabbed and washed the sections. The dried the area with a towel before dabbing again. In a couple of cases I over-bleached some areas I just dabbed on developer and waited for the tone to return. If you are patient this process can work well but patience is the key. It is surprisingly easy to overbleach but the developer can help recover the error. I had to remind myself to wait for the developer to work as it normally takes at least 2 minutes to act. I then fixed the print again to lock in the bleaching change.
I then archival washed and selenium toned the prints and dried them.
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| FB Classic 1 |
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| FB Classic 2 |
This was as far as I took this path. I think I may make a 12x12 inch print with this centered. Again the idea of lots of white space for the image to float in.
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