A Van Dyke print from ones I did the other day. I made a digital negative as it's time consuming and expensive to make film negs a suitable size. I need to find out more as it didn't print densely enough for what I wanted.
Exposed in UV unit 12 mins
wash 5 mins
hypo 5 mins
final wash 30 mins
Love this & how you approach your photographs in your own unique style. Its a shame that you are having to use alternate negative. love the grainy textures of the sand.
Really interesting tones and textures ingrid. Dont really understand the process though - how do you create a digital neg from film and what is a van dyke print. Sorry for the ignorance! :-p
I'll try and explain as best I can, you make a digital negative from a photo. This one was taken with my iphone and i changed it to monochrome in photoshop so we have a black and white positive. Then you can "invert" it and it changes it to negative so all your blacks become white etc.. I printed it out on inkjet transparency film so then it looks like an old negative but any size you want. If you were to use 35 mm negatives that is the finished size of the print which is really too small to get detail. The paper is coated with a mixture of chemicals - silver nitrate, ferric ammonium citrate and tartaric acid. You coat your paper ( I used Fabriano as it can withstand lots of washing) like you would a watercolour wash and leave it to dry. Although this is light sensitive it's not as sensitive as normal photographic paper so it can be done in subdued light. when it's dry you lay the negative on top of the paper and expose it to sun (haha) or use a UV unit ( North of scotland here - a must-have) then wash for 5 mins under running water ( again subdued daylight is ok ) then it is fixed in a hypo bath for 5 mins and washed then for 30 mins. Basically light gets through the transparent parts and the blacks block light getting through... so the chemicals change where the light has been and get washed away from where the black was. I'm not the best at explaining but these chemicals are fairly cheap ( they'll coat a lot of paper) you don't need a darkroom and you can use a clipframe on a sunny day for exposure. It's a great start to alternative printing and the colour is more pleasing than cyanotypes -bizarre as my favourite colour is blue. Hope that helps - I'm far better at explaining in person :) @vase@gwhit123
@ingrid2101 this makes sense! I was thinking you were shooting film to start with, so I was confused. Thank you so much, Ingrid! Now I know there is a way to do an alternative print from digital photo.
@vase Oh sorry Carla - probably didn't explain too well, I wanted to do this one before but felt it didn't fit into ff13 - too digital based. This method is so easy, and so satisfactory :)
Another great shot, you've inspired to try film, hopefully my nikon film camera will turn up this week. Just need to learn the processing technique and equipment required. Can you recommend any websites?
@johnmnewman Thanks John, what kind of camera are you getting? Are you wanting to develop your own film? If so I'd start with getting film developer, stop and fixer. A developing tank and a spiral reel. I don't use websites for any of this, just masses of books that I've bought over the years and tuition too. Honestly I'd recommend an evening class/ short course. If you want to do proper printing then you're going to need loads more equipment. It just depends on what you're wanting to do. For a process like this you need very little.- just the chemicals and a digital negative. I'm sorry I can't be more help but it really depends on how you want to start :)
@ingrid2101 Hi Ingrid gone for the Nikon FE, only want to have a go at developing, don't want to spend too much money in case I don't enjoy doing it. I'll have a look around a see what I need, hopefully get something done this month :)
@johnmnewman Lovely choice of camera, read loads before you do anything. Are you doing b&w first ? Colour is easy but I'd start with b&w - just read loads before you try, get a really cheap film and use it as a blank for loading onto the spiral reel - practice with it in daylight then try in the dark - can save lots of mistakes.
@3whiteroses Thanks Angela, exactly the same kind of process - different chems and strong paper required as the washing is so long - also has to go in hypo for fixing, essentially the same process too. Is it a while since you did cyanotypes ?
@ingrid2101 I have some cyanotypes that I did and I cherish them. I will take a photo of them and post them for you to see. I'm planning on doing some when the weather gets warmer. I make my own digital negatives.
@3whiteroses Look forward to that, I've just started making digital negs but not too happy with quality so must read up more, I got hold of a really good book but I tend to just steam right in then read how it should have been done. :)
@ingrid2101 I use to have a file that you open in PS and it helped to get the correct density. I will look for it and see if I still have it. If I do I will let you know and I will send it to you.
@vase @gwhit123
@jacjacs68 @rennes @pflaume @wendyhgill @markp @amyspada @margiec Thank you very much for all the lovely feedback, much appreciated :)
@abhijit Thank you! I love what it's made you think of - made me look at it in a different way, cool!
Thank you ,good fun too
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