Paper Negatives

Here are some shots I took this past weekend. These were all shot with a 9x12 Maximar on paper negatives. They

were all processed and contact printed in a dark tent in the middle of the horse pasture. This is about the most

primitive photography you can do without going to glass plates or tintypes.The people got the original prints and

these are scans of the paper negatives that I kept. Hope you like em !<div></div>

Number Two<div></div>

Number Three<div></div>

Number Four<div></div>

Number Five<div></div>

<p>Man those are way cool. I have shot some paper negatives in a pinhole before, but never printed them. I just scanned them in, then printed them. I have a 9x12 camera, can't remember which one right now, and shot film through it. It turned out ok, but yours are much better.</p>

<p>Mike</p>

<p>Just wonderful.</p>

The people wanted their picture taken all over the place. It was hard to get the exposures that way. There is no way to control the contrast in the bright sun. The last shot is under shade with a light blue sheet back drop. This was my controlled lighting situation, but nobody wanted to sit for a picture there except this lady. Some of the others I put in the shade as best I could.

<p>Neat stuff, Cliff! What was your exposure time for these? 5 seconds?</p>

<p> </p>

The exposures times were all between 1 sec and 1/5th depending on the light and splitting the differences with the aperture. The paper has not much latitude so you need to use a light meter on every shot and hope a cloud doesn't pass just as you are taking the picture. Sometimes it's kind of a guessing game and you make up the difference in development while you watch them.

<p>Cliff, great job. I've never had that much success with paper negs. You managed to get quite a bit of tonal range from them.</p>

<p>Very nice. How much texture was there in the prints themselves? No 5 is a lovely portrait.</p>

<p>I've got a 5x7 I'd like to put into service, at least as a 4x5. You say you needed to meter for each shot. What ISO did you use?</p>

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<p>Very nice work, Cliff. Got some good tonal range in those. Beautiful portraits!</p>

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<p>Like the portraits Cliff - esp. the last one! You made their day.</p>

<p>These are great Cliff! The sharpness is amazing. The subject really suits the process. I bet you kind of felt like an old time Western Photographer doing this. Didn't I see that they still make positive paper in one of the Eastern European plants? Like Efke or Foma? That would be fun to try for direct process printing.</p>

Hi Russ, Yes you can get direct pos paper from Freestyle, but it is very contrasty I think it is really made as a ortho lith process paper. . If you want to try it out here is the best I could do with it. ASA .35, K2 yellow filter, develop in 1:50 Rodinal. Make sure you have a very overcast, or flat lighting. To get a good tone range aim for long exposures of 20 to 30 seconds and adjust aperature accordingly. Fast exposures with the lens wide open will give you a very contrasty lithograph look as will the dektol developer.

 

 

Now just a quick story about the nuts you get at these things. A lady came up with a Dalmation and asked if I could take a picture of her dog. I said yes but I would have to use film instead of the paper since the dog was too hyper to sit still for a long exposure. Then she wanted an 8x10 picture. I told her I would have to do that in my darkroom and I could send it to her. She said OK and we decided on a price. And she was looking at some of the other pictures on my table and said "It won't look like these will it?" And I said Yes. She said she "But I wanted color." I said for what? It's a black and white spotted dog for crying out loud ! So anyway she walked away with her pooch and didn't bother me anymore..

JDM. This was regular glossy photo paper. They are all different , so test some out first to narrow your guesswork, but this one was about ASA 3 with the yellow filter. Develop in regular dektol or any paper developer.

<p>LOL. Funny story about the Dalmation. At least she didn't ask for it on a CD...</p>

That story is just too funny.. Laughing out Loud really! Excellent results especially that last one .. Really=? 20+ seconds? How did she sit so still for you! I tlike the others too but you recommendation for time seems long that no one moved or blurred the image! Thanks for sharing the speed and technique. You've mentioned this (paper negative) experience before. I really should try this, just I don't have trays or a darkroom etc.. It's enough of an effort for me to do tank development!

<p>When my son and I had a wet darkroom back in the 1980's we did some paper negative photography. We used 4x5 single weight paper for the negative. We rated it at ISO 1. The exposures I no longer remember but we processed it with Kodak paper chemistry for B&W. After rinsing and while still wet, we placed the negative against a wet unprocessed double weight paper and squeeged the bubbles out making a contact print under the light bulb, without benefit of a printing frame. The resulting image was processed in the same manner as the negative. The final prints were interesting and the effect also.</p>

<p>Are you sure you are not related to Matthew Brady, Cliff? great photgraphs as usual.<br>

I still plan to send you the camera I told you about.</p>

<p>Paul, That is the same process. The papers vary in speed from about ISO.2 (point 2) to about ISO 6. So you really need to check and test what you have.</p>

<p> Chuck, the 20 to 30 sec exposure is for the direct positive paper that Russ was talking about. ISO .35 (point 35) These were all shot between 1 sec and 1/5th sec.</p>

<p>Cliff, they're just great! I really wasn't aware that people still practiced this art, to the extent of going through the process outdoors in a darktent. You don't happen to own a transportable camera obscura, by any chance? Lovely tones, great pictures...I'm impressed. Many thanks for posting.</p>

<p>I guess if you have a camera that you can put sheets of paper in, you have about all it takes. You don't need a dark room. Any bathroom at night will work. If you don't have a red light you can use a yellow Bug light with most papers. for trays you can use the cheap Glad plastic storage trays from the grocery store. And in fact if you don't have any dektol, you can develop these with coffee and washing soda and fix them with chlorine reducer from the pool store. So the bottom line is "If you want to do it you can" Where there is a will, there is a way. If you don't want to do it, there are a million excuses that can be used, and all of them are valid..</p>

<p>Les, trying to impart knowledge where there is no wisdom to assimilate that knowledge is a waste of your breath. So basically,  the people were only told that I was taking antique photographs and they would get a real silver print while they wait, and had no idea what I was doing. I only answered pertinent questions about the process to a small few that knew something about photography. The other good thing is that when you come out of the dark tent and do the final rinse, you need to hang the prints to dry. That gives the people time to look over all your stuff on your table while they are waiting for their pictures to dry.<br>

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What I would really like to do, is to build a transparent box out of red lexan or plex with sleeves for my arms. That way people could actually watch the process. That is the real thriller that gets people involved with photography, seeing the magical image appear on the paper. I's not too exciting to just see a picture emerge from a dark tent. I think that red box would be the ultimate demonstration setup, so people could learn what it is all about.</p>