From: Christopher Lovenguth (zantzant@hotmail.com)
Date: 09/25/02-12:34:28 PM Z
>From what I have been reading the Becquerel overexposed white (solorized),
is that brownish color I’m getting which is not as pronounced on the
original unlike the digital version. What I understand is that when you use
the mercury development (which I know you do), you get the blues in the
solorized areas. You don’t get blue in Becquerel (maybe the lack of
bromine?). My warm tones are coming from a 6+ hour development under
rubylith in the sun. The longer you expose the plate in Becquerel the warmer
it gets. The exposure is done in about one hour and then after that tones
start to flatten out and turn warm. So (crash course in Becquerel
development here which I'm maybe just at apprentice level) I'm using a first
level fume colors that is somewhat contrasty and developing longer to
flatten it out.
I am using chrome film since I want a true representation of what I’m
photographing. That way the reds in my image for example turn black in the
daguerreotype. That is why in my image the doll’s lips are black since they
are painted red.
About possible damage to the plates when I put the chrome on it, my plates
are not pristine to begin with and I’m not worried about getting a perfect
plate since I like seeing the process in my image. Also (I'm guessing here)
the bromine fuming (which I don't need to do in Becquerel) might make the
layer a little more fragile. I know the iodine plate the slightest touch
with a finger will damage it, but what I have notice is that flat surfaces
tend not to harm it. So I'm just really gentle placing the plate on the
chrome.
I am using a 16x20 contact printing frame that I use for all my alt stuff.
It has rather thick glass. So I put the chrome down on the glass and then
put the plate on top of that and replace the frame back which is a spring
back. I’m putting the frame under a single 500 watt blue photoflood bulb
which is about 2-3 feet from the glass. The exposure for my example was 45
seconds but it needs to be a little less. I am fuming the iodine to that
first leve magenta almost blue which I get in about 1 1/2 minutes in to
fuming with a 4x5 box that the iodine crystals are about 5 inches away from
the plate. I am then going directly to the contact frame and exposing. Then
I’m putting the plate into a holder with the rubylith covering the plate and
putting it in my apartment window which faces south and a very little east
in San Francisco starting around 7am. I come home around 6pm and fix it with
hypo, wash and guild. That’s it.
Once I get the exposure time down under the photoflood, this will be one of
the easier alt processes I have done (excluding the buffing of the plate
which I'm still awful at)! Of course it is a completely different story
trying to get an image in camera which is where I want to be at. But for
right now I’m happy with doing things this way and if I can get some
consistency and a body of work visually interesting, I'll think it's
affective. -Chris
>From: "Robert W. Schramm" <schrammrus@hotmail.com>
>Reply-To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
>To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
>Subject: Re: Was someone asking about printing daguerreotypes from film?
>Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2002 12:15:31 -0400
>
>
>Christopher,
>
> I viewed you image and like it very much. I do Hg developed dags.
>I like very much to colors you are getting. Tell me how you lay the
>negative on the fumed plate and get it back off without damaging the silver
>iodide coating. Do you also put a piece of glass on to to hold the negative
>flat? BTW I sometimes overexpose my plates which causes the highlights to
>ture blue. One more question: are you using a negative or a positive? I ask
>because transparency film will give you a positive, in fact, a color
>positive.
>
>Bob Schramm
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