Impressionism (or something...)
I continue on this journey today with some more experiments. First, I am still trying to extract warmer tones with Fish and Chips being part of this process. Fish and Chips is a rehalating bleach based on potassium permanganate as the bleach agent and the use of sodium chloride as the source of the halogen rather than the traditional potassium bromide.
The impetus was to be able to develop and tone silver chloride in the bleached areas. The trouble is my only source of warm tone developer is the lith developer EasyLith. Today I recalled that I have some old Ilford Universal PQ developer that I stopped using as I don't like the warmish tone it delivers. The trouble is that Universal PQ is formulated with both KBr (Potassium Bromide) and BZT (Benzotriazole) as a restrainer. BZT delivers a cool tone while KBr contributes warmer tones.
I took some test prints from the prior session that had been developed in Moersch ECO 4812 developer to get a neutral to cold tone print. I then bleached them about halfway back in Fish and Chips diluted 1+9. I then redeveloped one first in 1 liter of Universal PQ augmented with 10mL of 10% KBr solution. This had no noticeable impact on image tone. The next bleached print I developed with Universal PQ with 20ml of 10% KBr solution and I managed a slightly warmer tone, though once the paper dried it is difficult to discern. . It is likely however the tone change is entirely down to the developer and any rehalting bleach could get the same results.
Lith Prints
My next stop was a result of researching past Lith work I had done. Several years ago, I went through a phase of exploring old papers. I ran across an odd Bulgarian paper made by a company called Fohar(фохдр in Bulgarian). This paper was called raster as it had a unique texture of small, raised circles. I suppose it was meant to mimic the phosphor on a TV screen. It turns out to lith quite well.
I found the old box of paper along with a box of Fohar Glossy paper which I decided to try as well. Both papers are unfortunately small at 13x18cm (5"x7"). I left the same Origin Trees 16mm negative in the enlarger from the last session and the size of the image matched well the paper size, so I didn't need to make many adjustments except for focus. The enlarger is at its full extension so I opened the aperture to f4 to try for the most exposure I could muster.
I made a test on raster and the glossy paper with a fresh batch for EasyLith 20ml A + 20ml B +300ml old brown + 600ml water. The paper shows easily any lack of proper agitation. I neglected both sheets and a darker band of development showed up and went infectious first where the paper had risen to the top of the developer and was not immersed for some of the development period.
The first Raster lith version I left emulsion side down in the developer with the glossy test. The glossy paper takes a long time to develop, about 15 minutes with an unheated developer. When I pulled the glossy paper, I flipped over the Raster paper and low and behold a well-developed image. (The glossy paper liths but is very splotchy and erratic so I decided not to spend more time on it.)
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| Fohar Raster f4 64 seconds over developed. |
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| Fohar Raster Lith Test with lack of agitation and manufacturing flaw in paper (chevron) |
It was clear by now the Raster paper has omes potential with the accidental over-development. I made a series of different exposures from 16 seconds to 128 seconds with additional 1 stop burn of the top 2/3rds of the image based on previous conventional prints and my prior lith experience with the image.
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| Fohar Raster 1 28 sec 128 sec burn top (scan005) |
The raster texture interacts with the grain to improve the texture.
If I snatched the same exposure early, I managed some warm tone in the sky... The rest of these all have Photoshop borders.
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| Fohar Raster 128 sec 128 sec burn top early snatch |
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| Fohar Raster 16 sec 16 sec burn top |
Toning
Next it is time to try some toning. My original work with Fohar Raster had me toning the lith in Selenium 1:3. This can help warm up a neutral or cold toned print though sometimes you get a garish magenta hue. It seemed sympathetic when I tried it before.
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| Fohar Raster 128 sec 128 sec burn top Selenium 1+3 for 2 minutes |
This gives a lovely warm tone that verges towards red.
I next took a similar exposure and bleached (Fish and Chips) it back partially then toned it with Moersch MT4 Siena Sulfur toner until I had a nice warm tone.
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| Fohar Raster 128 sec 128 sec burn top Bleach + MT4 Siena Sulfur Tone |
Next, I took another 128 second exposure and toned it in selenium 1+19 for 1 minute to hold the blacks then bleached back partially with Fish and Chips. I then re-developed using Tanol film developer 6+6+600 for 3 minutes. Tanol is a staining film developer that gives a green color. Since the silver is not reduced in Tanol I redeveloped in lith developer. It was tempting to use an alkali fixer to remove the remaining unreduced silver.
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| Fohar Raster 128 sec 128 sec burn top Selenium 1+19 1 minute Tanol redevelop Lith redevelop |
This results in a deep green tone that suits the mood of the dark image.
Finally, a side-by-side of these three different versions.
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| Toned Triptych |
Next, I set about making some Moersch MT 7 Iron Blue toner. The first print I toned completely in iron blue for about 1/2 minute. I then washed and cleared the print before soaking the portion below the horizon in selenium 1+3 until the blue tone disappeared, and that part of the image warmed slightly.
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| Fohar Raster 32 sec 32 sec burn top iron blue all selenium 1+3 bottom |
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| Fohar Raster 64 sec 64 sec burn top Iron blue top Selenium 1+3 bottom |
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