Camera Obscura » Darkroom

Resin coateded inkjet prints on artistic paper

Fabiano Busdraghi — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 19:11:01 +0000

Original picture before being print.

The first person that talked to me about resins coat on inkjet print on drawing paper was Marco Tardito (whom I also made an interview).

In the past I also tried myself printing on watercolor paper with my Epson 2100, but the results were terribly disappointing. Colors are completely wrong because standard profiles doesn’t work on artistic paper and black are almost grey, therefore the contrast is strongly flattened.

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Van Dyke Brown on cyanotype

Fabiano Busdraghi — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 21:54:33 +0000

Van Dyke Brown print cyanotype on Arche Platine paper. Analogical negative with interpositive on paper.

A couple of years ago, while I was traveling by car in the south of Italy, I was talking with a friend from Naples, photographer himself, about alternative print techniques. In particular, I was talking about superimposing brown prints, or Van Dyke brown, to cyanotype prints.

The answer was quick and laconic:

- Blue and brown is not allowed! (NT: in Italian the rhyme goes with a word that means rude, boor)

There’s also the twin proverb to complete the opera: “black and brown never allowed”.

In reality, superimposing iron salts brown print on cyanotype is a technique, as every technique, that could be interesting, mostly when printing the hardest negatives or to recover bad VDB prints. This phrase could be rude, but actually in alternative techniques world it is better to let yourself go, letting destiny play its trickeries, leaving space to serendipity and accepting what fate will give to you. Those who work with this kind of prints are used to it to discover an alternative look, produce different images to the ones we’re used to, create unique prints. This is the reason why there’s nothing better than case or, if we want, chaos.

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Monochromatic pictures on darkroom color paper

Fabiano Busdraghi — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 00:14:08 +0000

Gust of sea in Cabo Polonio (Uruguay), 2007. Color prints from black-and-white negatives. Size: 18×24cm on satin Fujicolor Crystal Archive.

The research of the perfect technique, from the deepest black, to the larger gamut, to the most defined detail, but even to the most expressive and original picture, turns sometime photography into a boring and repetitive job, converting the shooting into some more and more formal and disconnected tests that aim to the original objective of this occupation: creativity.

Sometime I feel like I need to go back to the ludic aspect of photography, that sensation that lets you freely create, the pleasure of entering a dark room to experiment and play. When the last months have been spent testing if that particular sizing for platinum better lighten the image, trying to complete that series of images for a certain portfolio or repeating again and again the calibration procedure on digital negatives… well, I swear that abandon for one day seriousness and discipline makes you feel the pure pleasure of photography.

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Carbon print

Fabiano Busdraghi — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 09:16:18 +0000

Carbon transfert is surely one of the most beautiful photographic print techniques invented by men. This article traces the history of its invention and describes the unique characteristics that made it the king of the print techniques. There’s also a technical introduction to the process and a succinct bibliography.

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The photographs “Demons”, technical notes

Fabiano Busdraghi — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 08:46:04 +0000

Ithea, 2007. Carbon print 13cmx19cm on satin paper Fabriano Artistico Traditional White 38cmx56cm, natural border.
The tactile characteristics of the carbon print can be appreciate only watching the real print.

All the images of the “I demoni” series are shot with a catadioptric objective, a lens gifted with a particular bokeh, that gives a particular out-of-focus. In fact, even if the out-of-focus is intense, the objects have an important spatial structure, as it was a superimposition of the different images. The sign of the catadioptric objective is occasionally visible in those little rings superimposed to the image, partial or complete, which are the luminous marks of points deformed by the ring diaphragm of the objective.

Pictures are voluntarily out-of-focus to exploit this category of mirrored objectives and are voluntarily under-exposed to obtain a dark and gloomy atmosphere.

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Searching for a cyanotype black toning

Fabiano Busdraghi — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 11:23:21 +0000

Aamon. Cyanotype toning: 5’ tannic acid 1%, 15” paper revelator 1+9, acetic acid 0.1%, 5’ tannic acid 0.1%. Dark points are negative holes and do not depend from toning. Canson “C” grain paper, 224g, 24×32cm. Image size 17×25cm.

All of the cyanotype toning formulas that I tried, completely bleaching the image in an alkali and re-developing it in a tanning agent for a long time, gave red-browned flat hues with a little dmax. I always obtained best results with long tanning bathes and a quick immersion in a diluted alkali, which gave a print with warm grey, brown or pink lights, while shadows are intense blue, slightly violet or black. A part of the original blue of the cyanotype is conserved in the final print, giving not only a cold hue to shadows, but also keeping relatively high the dmax, penalized by a complete alkaline whitening.

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Ammonia in cyanotype tonings

Fabiano Busdraghi — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 09:35:01 +0000

Writer Gudrum Mebs portrait. Completely bleached cyanotype in ammonia and slightly tanned with coffee. Dimension: 17×25cm.

The majority of cyanotype tonings use two baths: a tanning agent as tea, coffee or, obviously, the tannic acid itself and an alkali, usually sodium carbonate. Their order can be inverted, with or without washing before and between the two baths, in different concentrations… all of the combinations give give quite different effects. It is also possible to repeat toning, for example tanning-alkali-tanning.

Possibilities are never-ending.

Ammonia as basic bath is an alternative to calcium carbonate that is often cited in literature. Yesterday night I made some preliminary tests using a 13% ammonia solution bought from the grocer store and the discount soluble coffee. All of the prints were discards on which make tests, too contrasted pictures, overexposed, with stains or too much pixelated. I used them just to familiarize with the procedure.

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Missed contact between negative and support

Fabiano Busdraghi — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 18:28:29 +0000

Using a printing frame that doesn’t guarantee a sufficient pressure, the image can have some blurred zones where the contact between negative and paper is not optimal.

The majority of the alternative techniques and historical processes are not so sensible to light and it is therefore impossible to use an enlarger as on traditional fiber paper prints. Negatives are printed with contact print technique.

If there’s even a minimum space between paper and negative, it could be the littlest – it doesn’t matter, the final image – at best- won’t have the finest details and the micro-contrast, will be blurry and soft. When the space augments, there will be completely blurred zones, particularly bothersome and impossible to hide.

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Air bubbles stains in gum bichromate

Fabiano Busdraghi — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 18:01:26 +0000

When air bubbles remains under the paper during the developing phase of a gum bichromate print, they prevent the local development, leaving stains on the image.

The printer often follows the developing phase or the development of a gum bichromate print with few agitation and no interventions, and it is therefore called passive development. This is the most photographic form of the developing phase for the gum, the one that keeps the finest details of the print, that doesn’t present visible external intrusions, that has the less pictorial aspect.

As the immobility of the development bath, you must pay attention not to form or leave trapped air bubbles under the paper. In this case water is no more in contact with the print and less developed zones carve out. It’s easy recognizing those types of imperfections from other halos or similar defaults, as in the case of bubbles, the stains are perfectly circular and have defined borders.

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Wet sizing with threading bar

Fabiano Busdraghi — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 04:40:54 +0000

The correct sizing procedure (left) consists in pouring gelatine on sheet (1) and laying it using a threading bar (2), to obtain a uniform cover up. If, on the contrary (right), the bar is on the sheet (1), when the gelatine is poured on it, it follows the threading bar (2) and easily oozes out of the sheet (3).

I always had hard times sizing the paper used for printing in a fulfilling way. That’s the reason why I always tried to avoid sizing my supports. If this is possible with the ferric salts and the one coat gums, it is a serious problem when you want to obtain clean whites with multiple dichromate gums prints.

I never obtained good results laying gelatine, as the brush raises bubbles and bristle streaks. Dipping always gave big and ugly dregs once hanged out the paper to dry. Moreover, it is necessary to harden it twice and dry it inverting the bottom with the top to obtain a uniform gelatine thickness on the entire sheet; otherwise the gelatine will be thicker on the bottom.

During the month of July Damiano Bianca showed me how to lay gelatine using a threading tube large as much as the sheet.

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How to eliminate the precipitate from Van Dyke Brown solutions

Fabiano Busdraghi — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 11:21:01 +0000

Fine silver flakes float on the surface of a Van Dyke Brown solution”

Lots of Van Dyke Brown printers lament that a precipitate form inside a Van Dyke Brown solution, obtained during the preparation of the solution itself, or more precisely just before finishing to add C inside A+B, following the conventions and quantities of the VDB classic formula like the Wynn Whyte style says.

Not everyone obtains this precipitate and the principal reason is that ammonium ferric citrate is not a well-defined chemistry substance. (go to Mike Ware page for same examples), that means it changes from distributor to distributor and often from bottle to bottle.

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Van Dyke Brown

Fabiano Busdraghi — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 08:57:20 +0000

Here a brief description of the formulas and proportions that I use to get the classic solution Van Dyke Brown and a modified one to prevent the deposit of silver salts.

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Dupont 4-R, Eder’s harmonizing reducer

Fabiano Busdraghi — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 22:54:55 +0000

Adox negative reduced with Eder’s harmonizing reducer. Please notice the apparition of three horizontal marked bands and a fine vertical weft. This last was present also before the reduction, while the bands where invisible while printing and only appeared after the treatment.

Compared to digital negatives, analogical negatives adapt more easily to the used techniques, allowing a larger margin of interpretation.

Digital negatives are precisely calibrated on an ensemble of constant variables. They practically function correctly for a certain type of paper, sensitizer, drying, etc… But they give bad results when changing those parameters, even for little changes. The consequence is that digital negatives are useful when a standard for a certain technical paper is established, but while searching and experimenting is easier to use an analogical negative, which better accomodate the variations of the printing technique.

It’s the reason why, even if in general I print using digital negatives or little contacts taken from 120mm negatives, I sometime prepare enlarged negatives. The procedure to obtain it is long and complex, lots of tests are required to learn how to obtain a negative perfectly adapt to a certain print technique.

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Basicity and color of cyanotype

Fabiano Busdraghi — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 11:08:19 +0000

Near the Gare de Lyon. Cianotype 6×6cm on Schoeller Durex 17×17cm paper.

Some weeks ago, talking with famous French palladium printer Jean Claude Mougin, we started discussing about cyanotype print hue. In that occasion, he said that when cyanotype tends to violet is because paper is probably basic and could contain a buffer of carbonates. As is common knowledge, cyanotypes prefer an acid environment and preserving them in a basic environment could harm their life span. Therefore, it should be better to avoid basic paper.

I tested several cyanotype papers and cheap drawing papers are my favorite; the nice watercolor paper, neutral and 100% cotton, gave inferior visual results. In particular, drawing papers have a violet tone that I found more agreeable than the cyanotic of the more noble ones.

Therefore I suppose those papers contain a buffer of carbonates and this could harm the life span of prints.

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Tea toned posterized cynotype

Fabiano Busdraghi — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 22:38:39 +0000

Andrea. Posterized cynotype by tea toning and sodium carbonate. Fabriano Artistico Paper gelatine sized, salted and pre-acidified in citric and acetic acid. Paper and image size: 19×28,5 cm. Unique copy.

It is known and decanted the importance of taking notes and conform to standard all the procedures when working in dark room, mostly when working with antique techniques. But sometimes it is funny to let yourself go and dare. The majority of the prints will be thrown away, but sometime you can get unique results that you would have never been able to obtain if following the known ways. Something you’ve never seen before, because it is born with the help of destiny.

This is the history of one of those images.

Couple of years ago, far 2004/2005, I was fighting with salted paper, and I couldn’t print more than a pair of decent images. I couldn’t understand which was the variable that stonewalled. I was testing several types of paper, sizing, hardening… I found the right combination for a great result, I prepared 20 sheets with as much attention as I could, but in the end no one was working. There must be some kind of variable that I couldn’t control that was making fun of me. The result was nothing but tons of lost hours and lots of paper ready to be sensitized and left in the dark room to get older.

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