More sepia toned photographs

Gold toned Nest and Magnolia print

Two more Sepia Toned prints

Two of the Sepia toned prints I made yesterday.

Today I tried Sepia toning. I'd observed this in a class once at Newspace but never tried it myself. Finally decided to see what it could do for my prints. I was pleased with the results.

The first step is to take a wet print and place it in a photographic bleach bath. The bleach starts immediately to bleach the "lightest" portions of the print first. Turning zones 9 where there is just the slightest hint of exposure, to zone 10, no exposure or paper base. The longer the print remains in the bleach all of these mid tones vanish. I guess if you left the print in the bleach long enough all of the silver in the print would be converted and the image would "disappear". It doesn't really disappear but the silver compounds that make up the grays and blacks in the print will come back as sepia or brown shades when the print is placed in the toning bath after all of the bleach has been rinsed off of the print.

I was frustrated a bit by the bleaching process when working on my Magnolia prints where large portions of the print, the white petals of the flowers, I print out in zones 8 and 9. If left in the bleach too long it seemed these zones of slight exposure, 8 and 9 were eliminated in the sepia toned print and I lose the details in that portion of the print. Perhaps I needed to leave the prints in the toning bath longer, or in the bleach bath shorter, or print a little darker if my intention is to eventually sepia tone the print. The bleach bath has to be hosed off the print rather then placing the print in a tray of running water. I found it best to put the bleached print in to an empty tray and turning the tray on its side with the damp print stuck to the bottom of the tray and using a bit of rubber hosing attached to my water faucet to wash away all the bleach as quickly as possible. The bleaching process continues as long as bleach remains on the print so I had to pull the prints out of the bleach and then hose the prints down quickly. The bleach is a dark yellow and it takes quite a bit of water to flush it totally off of the print.

The Magnolia Photographs so far.

Photographs taken in the last year of 4 different Magnolia flowers with 35mm, 120, and 4x5 film formats.

This years Magnolia flower picture. Used a Mamiya C220 camera with Agfa 25 120 film in a 6x6 format. Printed out on warm tone semi-matte ilford fiber paper. The negative had a flaw that is difficult to see on the negative but shows up on the print as a very light squiggly line running through the middle of the picture, it's not a scratch but looks like maybe a product of uneven development of the negative. I liked this particular negative though because I used the widest apeture for a narrow focus range to give the picture a kind of soft, pictorial, pre photo secessionist movement look.

I like the look of the work of the earlier pictorialist photographers who due to the type of equipment and materials and probably the style of the times let their pictures emphasize the weaknessess of early photographic techniques. Ansel Adams liked to call these type of photographers the 'Fuzzy-Wuzzies' and he and several young rebels broke free to form the f-64 group and the photo secessionist movement that worked at perfecting the photographic image to show what the camera could do best; render the world in all it's detail.

A recent contact sheet and test exposure print. I am hoping this weekend to work on one more negative from this batch of images I took of the Magnolia flower a few weeks ago. I like #6, a bit over exposed and shot with a wide apeture setting for a very limited focus range. This negative might be a good candidate for more enlargement to compliment the soft look.

A few more pictures of the floating condo that had a port of call here in Portland last month.

Magnolia flower shot on 120 Agfa 25 and printed out on warm tone paper.

Couple more pictures from my Nest "series".

Oaks Park in color.

Pictures taken with Kodak Portra 120 film using a Mamiya C-220.

I shot a roll of color film using my Mamiya C-220 recently. Here is a phalanopsis orchid.

Harpist in waterfront park.

Photograph of nest taken last weekend. Printed from 35mm negative, Agfa 25 on to ilford warmtone paper.

Magnolia Bud.

A print from one of the rolls of film I shot last weekend. This bud never opened up but I liked this image. Used 35 mm Agfa 25, and printed out on Ilford warm toned fiber paper. I have a roll of 120 film I developed yesterday with another open magnolia flower I am going to work on this morning.

More photographs taken with a digital camera of my set up for photographing the Magnolia flower.

This years Magnolia flower. Worked on taking pictures of this specimen most of the morning. Using Agfa 25 with 35mm and with 120.

Two more pictures from a recent roll of film. Using the Nikkor 85mm f1.8.

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!!

I developed a roll of film last night and this morning did some printing from it. On the roll were pictures I took of this huge ship, The World, that docked for a couple of days near Salmon Street Springs. I photographed it using my Nikkormat with a Nikkor 85 f 1.8 and orange filter from the eastbank esplanade.

Perfect weather for staying down in the basement working in the darkroom and photographing stuff. Found this small unfinished nest and photographed it using my Nikon, Agfa 25 and my 105mm bellows lens.

Details from my contact sheet of film I developed last weekend. Hopefully during the holiday weekend I'll be able to work on some more.