><< Is there any advantage in using the Pyro/Freestyle litho negative
> compared to Dektol for a Cyanotype negative?
> >>
Please feel free to try it yourself. The proof is going to be in what
your own eye tells you.
My own experience suggests that if your pyro negatives are not clear on
the edges or very much overexposed, the fog will destroy any gains you
may have made otherwise. Also, it seems to me that if you haven't done
much of this yet, it might be much better to use what is easier for now
to learn and perfect other aspects of the process and experiment with
pyro along with it -- but more or less seperately.
One problem that frequently occurs is that people try to change too many
things at once. We can learn from good science: If we change ONLY one
variable at a time, we can actually hope to succeed in our
experimentation. Situations which are set up and shot to be processed
both ways are best, so that we can tell what results from a single
change. It is also very good to defer making final judgments; even for
years. Often the result we see may derive from a different cause than
that for which we are testing - which we did not even know was there when
we started. Trying it again in a different situation will help avoid
making incorrect judgments. Once a judgment is made, it tends to limit
one's options.
I am a long time pyro user, but not exclusively. I have used virtually
all known methods of compensating development and have even devised
several methods which have not been mentioned in this discussion -- not
even by Dave. I have tested lots of films and developers. In spite of
that, I use pyro generally because I like it, not because I have proven
it to be better. It looks different; sometimes, very strikingly
different. Sometimes, it has taken my breath away (and I don't mean
because of lack of ventilation when I mix it!). I don't use it all the
time or for everything.
When I test something it is not to find the blanket best in the show but
to find out what something will do. There are things I don't like for
one reason or another, but I try not to hold it against anyone if he or
she happens to like them. For most of my cyanotypes I use HC110 unless
there is some reason I want to use pyro or something else. There are a
lot of times pyro is not the developer I would choose for a particular
use.
We have available to us many developers which exhibit distinctly
different properties. Over the decades these battles have raged about
them (anybody still remember Champlin 15?), and I think a lot of these
battles really are, at root, about the hegemony of preference. On the
whole it seems to me that religion is ok except when it results in
killing people who don't happen to agree with you. But for me
photography is a lousy religion. I have enjoyed some of this discussion
and have learned some interesting things but I doubt that I will change
much of what I do or what I use because of it. I really value that I
have a broad pallette of options among which I can pick and choose
according to my own lights, and I don't have to justify what I do to
anyone.
Larry Bullis
Skagit Valley College