Photographs by Frank

15 May 2022

New Salted-paper Prints / Old Photos

Filed under: Alternative Processes,Salted-paper Prints — Frank @ 6:45 PM

A few days ago, I decided that I wanted to get back to salted-paper printing. My specific aim was to make myself a print of the photo titled “Harvest Still Life”. I printed this image back at the end of March during a lecture/demo I did for the Tuttle library. However, I did not end up with a final print for myself.

While I was at it, I looked through my archives for a few other photos that might look good as salted-paper prints and prepared some additional negatives for test printing.

Then, I spent most of yesterday afternoon, when the outside temperature was a very unseasonable 85 degrees F, in the pleasant cool of my basement dim room.

Harvest Still Life is about 6 by 7 1/2 inches on an 8 by10 inch sheet*. The other two prints are about 4 by 5 inches on 6 1/2 by 7 inch sheets**. The paper is Hahnemuhle Platinum Rag paper for all.

The first and last prints were gold/bicarbonate toned***. This treatment cools down the warm brown of an un-toned print resulting in an almost neutral tone. I left the middle print is un-toned, as I thought the natural warmth of a salted paper print suited the image well.

I printed three other negatives as well, but none of these are ‘ready for prime time’. They will all need a bit of tweaking before I print them again… stay tuned!

[scrollGallery id=853 – autoscroll = false width = 600 height = 600 useCaptions = true]

* This has evolved to be my standard-size for alternative process prints.

** This is my usual work print size; used when I am working out the details (mostly dodging and burning) of the negative.

*** This was an experiment. Previously, I have used gold/borax toner exclusively if I toned prints. However, I have trouble keeping the necessary amount of borax in solution in my cool (OK… downright cold at times) basement dim room.

1 Comment

  1. “Harvest Still Life” is a definite wall hanger! Thanks for the background info as well. Keep ’em coming as I find these techniques fascinating.

    Comment by Joe Kennedy — 16 May 2022 @ 10:23 AM

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.

Powered by WordPress