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higher order dilemmas
Judy wrote:
>Hi Shannon... This is either let's all jump on Shannon day, or let's all
>HELP Shannon -- either way, seems to me a couple of points are being
>overlooked.
Yes, I appreciate all this help. Thanks.
>
>1. You can't just develop the "right" negative for a process in a vacuum.
>Each paper/ formula/ water/ light combo has its own curve. (As i noted in
>P-F #5 with a rundown on the way different papers print cyano.) Permit me
>to suggest that you print a 21-step with the formula(s) you have in mind
>on a paper you think you like (or several -- you never can have too many
>21-steps!!!), and then count the ways, that is the steps... And aim to
>sort of approximate that in the neg.
>
>Or go the other way... if your negs are reasonably in the ballpark, find a
>paper they print nicely on.
>From reading Post-Factory and other sources, I have learned that every
paper/sensitizer has its own curve. My problem is, I haven't got the paper
and chemicals yet, but I have a whole lot of negatives, and I want to get
this processing thing sort of nailed down before I leave, so I won't have
to take all my stuff. Maybe this is unrealistic...
I think I was hoping to get some negatives reasonably in the ballpark, as
you say, and find ways to print them.
>
>This is not to say you really have to make a special match between paper
>and neg, but simply that you may be trying harder than you have to.
Probably. It's easy to be overwhelmed by all the technical information and
the widely varying guesstimates on how to come up with a starting point for
a development time. I've seen everything from, "just use your N+1
development time," which would be about nine minutes for me, to "double
your N time."
>
>2. I think I recall that your neg was developed by tank & you began with
>the times given for tray (or vice versa). I don't THINK those will be the
>same. In fact, in my experience, the touch of your hand in tray
>development is sui generis -- or I sure tried to duplicate results of a
>friend in tray flipping..... I never could. I practically wore his
>t-shirt... Mine were consistent, but SERIOUSLY unlike his. His lab was at
>116th street, mine downtown. Was the water different? Maybe... but I
>suspect the aura -- or the touch.
I think you're right. The times I started with--Dick Arentz's in the back
of his book--were for my film and my developer, but he is using tray
development and really big mammoth negatives, and I am using a daylight
tank with 4x5 negatives. His normal time is 20 minutes. Mine may turn out
to be half that.
>
>4. Look at the bright side: Your dilemmas get to be of an increasingly
>higher order.... the best any of us can ask for.
Yes, I've been thinking about the "print as big as a barn door for pennies"
you mentioned in the cyanotype issue of PF and trying to figure out how to
make a negative as big as a barn door. I saw a big truck yesterday and
thought, "Now, if you could just make a pinhole in the back door of that
truck, and put some paper on the opposite wall, you could make a negative
as big as a barn door." What do you think?
--shannon