Silver Gelatin

[john_boyd9]

<p>Hello Everyone<br>

Recently i have seen something called silver gelatin weave while searching on the web. The images seems very interesting to me. I'm not familiar with the process and I was wondering if someone could explain this to me. This is something i would love to experiment with. I know a bit about silver gelatin processing from what i learned in school. <br>

Is there a tutorial that teaches this?<br>

https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2898/14307408264_228251f3d1_z.jpg <br>

https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5326/9432347570_aeae31fc08_z.jpg <br>

https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3702/9360247469_493f6bbccd_z.jpg </p>

[john_boyd9]

<p>The artist wrote this explanation<br>

"This print was made by weaving 20 individual 5"x48" strips of Ilford RC photosensitive darkroom paper. I first assemble the paper (under a darkroom safelight) in a weaved pattern to the size of 4ft.x4ft. & then project my negative into the paper as it hangs on the wall. Then I bring the print to the studio floor and apply developer & fixer. After it's done with the chemicals I then take it outside and wash it with a garden hose. After it's dried, I then used photo bleach, sepia, selenium, stains, & inks."<br>

my question is how does he project the negative into the paper thats hanging on the wall? and how does he apply developer and fixer? </p>

[Dustin McAmera]

<p>My own enlarger (not used in some years) is a very common Durst M670, but you can turn the head to project onto a wall for bigger enlargements.<br>

My guess is he just brushed the chemicals on with a paintbrush. From the look of the pictures, he wasn't too concerned about uniformity. You'd want to keep brushing fresh solution over each area as often as possible. <br>

I bet you could get trays to accommodate a 4x4 foot sheet if you preferred; maybe as greenhouse plant-pot trays. It would still be careful work to rock the tray without spilling the solution, and you'd need quite a lot of it.</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>Many enlargers can do wall projection, as Pete described. An alternative is floor projection, although this may require pivoting the enlarger head around or removing the baseboard and mounting the enlarger/column at the edge of the countertop. Even a slide projector could be used, although the results would be soft but possibly adequate for the photographer's aesthetics.</p>

<p>There are many methods for chemical processing of large sheets, as Pete described. A large soft goat hair "hake" brush can be useful. If the paper is placed in a large flat try the chemicals can be poured and sloshed around across the surface of the print. Or the chemicals could be sprayed on with an aerosol sprayer, the runoff collected in a catch tray, and recycled. An advantage to RC paper is the processing times are very short and there's little risk of the paper becoming saturated. Most RC emulsions are durable - with the notable exception of Mitsubishi RC paper, which I found scratched too easily - so there are several processing methods that may be practical.</p>

[James G. Dainis]

To fill a 48 inch by 48 inch tray to 1/2 inch would require 5 gallons of developer or fixer.

[craig_shearman1]

<p>Unless you're simply into the idea of the "weave" of the paper, this is a pretty impractical way to make a large print.<br /><br />Turning the enlarger sideways to project on the wall to make a large print is nothing new. It's been done for decades. But it's traditionally done onto one large sheet of paper, not a bunch of strips where the seams will show in the finished product. Not sure if it's still available but you used to be able to buy paper four feet wide (or wider) in long rolls and cut off the length you need.<br /><br />Processing can be done two ways. One is to build large trays out of wood frames lined by heavy plastic. The other is to use more of a trough -- either purchased or homemade -- and seesaw the paper through it.<br /><br />Doing strips like this person describes doesn't make sense because (again unless you just want the weave) you're still going to have to buy paper in large sizes (and probably cut it down to get the strips) and will need either a large tray or trough for developing. (The only reason I could see for a strip was if you were using roll film designed for an automated printing machine that comes in maybe 8 inch widths, but I don't imagine that's made in B&W anymore.)<br /><br />Silver gelatin is irrelevant. That's just the technical term for ordinary B&W paper. You could do the same with color paper, but of course you would have to do it all in the dark without a safelight.</p>

[craig_shearman1]

<p>I spoke without looking at the pictures of the pictures. I suppose the weave is the point of this person's style. Still a lot of work.</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>The weave was probably necessitated by making use of some rolls of Ilford's 5" wide RC paper intended for machine printing and processing.</p>

<p>Weaving the paper together would probably necessitate avoiding soaking the print in open trays or swishing it through a trough like wallpaper. Brushing, spraying or pouring the chemicals over the front only would probably be more practical, using a catch tray at the bottom.</p>

[Dustin McAmera]

<p>I think the <em>idea</em> is at least half the point of this. The guy had an interesting idea, starting from the availability of long strips of paper, and has found a way to make it work. It seems to me that the process is a lot less worthwhile when it's not your own idea; far better to come up with your own wacky procedure.<br>

It also seems to me that you could avoid processing large sheets of paper. You could print the image piecewise on 5x8 sheets, and 'weave' those after developing them. Each sheet has to show a 5x5 inch piece of the image. You'd have to mount them on a backing sheet; the woven assembly would have no strength.</p>