slowest speed b&w paper (still available)

Hi everyone,

for a performance I will be developing gelatine silver prints in daylight, having the images appearing only for a moment and then disappearing in the overexposed black.

I was wondering, what is the slowest speed paper on the market?

I'm trying to expand that moment to when the image is visible as much as I can, therefor planning to use very slow paper, as well mixing a very weak developer (which one would you recommend?). Also I guess that overexposing the print on the enlarger will give a bit more of a chance for the image to stay.

If you got any other ideas please feel free to share.

Thanks a lot

"for a performance I will be developing gelatine silver prints in daylight, having the images appearing only for a moment and then disappearing in the overexposed black."

Well, good luck with that!

You do realise that there's a delay between submerging the print in developer and the image coming up? During which time the paper will fog if exposed to daylight; no matter how slow it is.

"for a performance I will be developing gelatine silver prints in daylight, having the images appearing only for a moment and then disappearing in the overexposed black."

 

Well, good luck with that!

 

You do realise that there's a delay between submerging the print in developer and the image coming up? During which time the paper will fog if exposed to daylight; no matter how slow it is.

Haha yeah I’m aware.. I wonder though if for a few seconds you will still be able to see the image

dilute the developer, it will take longer to get an image up and the solarization will also take longer to black out.

BTW the first minute has hardly any image developing. if you need it to come up in that minute, over expose. also rc paper will react to developer faster than fb.

"dilute the developer, it will take longer to get an image up and the solarization will also take longer to black out."

- That's exactly the opposite of what you want. The longer the print lies in daylight undeveloped, the blacker it's going to be when it finally develops. And 'solarisation' - Mackie lines - only appear around a developed image that's subsequently exposed to light. Exposure before the image develops is just fog.

Look; average daylight is going to be at least one hundred times brighter than an enlarger exposure. That means every second of exposure to daylight is equivalent to about 100 seconds under an enlarger, and will fog the print completely in just a few seconds - long before the image starts to appear in the developer.

If you just want to demonstrate a silver image being printed, then forget developing altogether, and contact-print a negative by daylight. A brown image will appear on ordinary bromide paper after a few minutes exposure under a negative. That image will last long enough to be easily viewed, and can be made permanent if dunked straight into fixer.

That will take some experimentation by the OP.

I have no idea if he is waiting for the image in the safe light or under white light. If he waits for an image, it will last longer once the lights come on in a dilute developer... BUT...

I was playing with it this weekend using MGIV FB. In full strength developer it blacked in 30 sec (after an image appeared), but in diluted developer it took a bit longer to go black.

*If he puts it in the stop bath once the image is up, he gains at least a minute or more... besides.. it can stay in the stop till he is ready to pull it out of a light tight box.

SO experiment is the key and take suggestions for what they are... ideas!

I remember pop from when I was a kid. you put the neg on it and leave it in the sun till the image was developed. the image wasn't permanent.

the emulsion isn't very hard to make. I had the formula and made a small batch a few years ago to show some boy scouts.

If anybody knows of any current (2018) source for POP (Printing Out Paper, aka proof paper) I'd appreciate hearing about it.

The POP picture can be made permanent by fixing (and more so by toning the print). The older examples could produce tonal ranges beyond those available on modern development papers, according to examples given in the Life Library of Photography series (Caring for Photographs volume, p 48ff.

Or chill the paper and developer?

Saw a press photog do this one time. Needed longer exposure time for a burn and dodge on RC, the community darkroom was +80F so dektol tank was warm, and he couldn't stop down because his eyes werent that good and he needed a bright image. He kept going to freezer for paper...couldn't figure out why.

The old contact print papers, like Velox, are much slower than old enlarging papers, which are much slower than today's enlarging papers.

If you mean in sunlight, I don't think you have any chance.

If you mean indoor room light, maybe, but I suspect it will be hard, even with Velox.

Indoors, you could replace all the room lamps with yellow light bulbs, which could still be bright enough for people to see, and also safe enough for paper.