Exposure of the print in o[en shade does increase contrast when printing negatives which did not receive adequate development.Originally Posted by tgtaylor
Exposure of the print in o[en shade does increase contrast when printing negatives which did not receive adequate development.
My second salt print and first one that was semi-successful.
Negative exposed two years ago on 8X10 Kodak High Speed Green X-ray film at a shallow canyon lined with basalt cliffs near Lucky Peak Dam, not far from Boise, ID.
I think a yellow filter was used at exposure. Film processed a few days after exposure. Salt print made a couple of days ago.
Paper is Southworth Resume 32 lb. in 8-1/2 X 11 inch sheets. This paper was listed in an online tutorial for making calotype prints. The paper is sized, so no gelatin or starch was used in the salt solution. The paper is also buffered, so it was soaked in dilute vinegar and dried before salting. I've also used this paper to make a few cyanotypes.
The salt was from a very old bag of Morton Ice Cream salt, used in the freezing mixture for old fashioned ice cream makers. This is the least pure salt they sell, basically as mined but broken up into small chunks. I bought some canning and pickling salt because I was concerned about the impurities in the ice cream salt, but after seeing salt prints made from sea water I decided to give it a try.
First print was made with 2% salt and 12% silver nitrate. The paper turned brown during exposure. I chose a very dense, contrasty, over developed negative and it actually had too much contrast.
This print was made with citric acid added to the silver nitrate solution, just enough for the amount used to coat the print. The margins didn't turn brown at all, so that was a success. The negative wasn't really high in contrast, it would print fine with enlarging paper.
Exposure was 90 minutes under a 500 watt quartz halogen work light with the heavy glass UV filter removed. An Apugger recommended this as a low budget light source, and there was already one out in the garage that seldom got used. I guess the long exposure was responsible for getting fairly decent print contrast from the only moderately contrasty negative. Lately the sky has been under heavy overcast, and it's too cold to take the printing frame outside.
The print was fixed in about a 7% solution of sodium thiosulfate with 1% sodium sulfite added to keep it from going bad in a hurry.
Some small pieces of the paper surface stuck to the negative, possibly because the print frame got fairly warm from being close to a 500 watt heat source. Next prints will be a bit further away, and food wrap film will be used between negative and print.
The print was scanned in color, but the scan only showed traces of the print's color cast. Some color balance manipulation was done in GIMP to make the scan look as close to the original print as possible, color cast wise. The scan also has much coarser texture than the print. My scanner works well only with glossy paper. Scans of matt paper look coarse like this. The print has a smooth matt finish to the naked eye.
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Paper is Southworth Resume 32 lb. in 8-1/2 X 11 inch sheets. This paper was listed in an online tutorial for making calotype prints. The paper is sized, so no gelatin or starch was used in the salt solution. The paper is also buffered, so it was soaked in dilute vinegar and dried before salting. I've also used this paper to make a few cyanotypes."
You used my favorite paper, but I find no need to soak it in vinegar or other acid. I have used several boxes of it because it is the paper I use when I teach the process. My salt mixture always contains gelatin.
I guess the paper doesn't need to be 'fizzed' before salting. I first used it for cyanotypes, and got fog and blue splotches on my prints. After fizzing it, no issues with the cyanotypes.
So...putting one of my salt prints in a show in February. What are you guys calling these things? Salt Prints? Salted Paper Prints? Calotypes? I'm leaning towards Salted Paper Print myself...
Here's my first salt print of 2015:
I shot and developed the negative Friday afternoon (2 January) and printed it Saturday morning.
Thomas
How about calling it a "salt & pepper paper print" and make the viewers repeat that 10 times as they view the print.
Here's my piece for the show in February. We were also asked to write a short essay about our work. Thank you to everyone who helped publicly and privately. You are all a huge help.
Title: Evaporation Pond, US Magnesium, Great Salt Lake, Utah
Medium: Gold-toned, Salted Paper Print
Date: Negative – 2014, Print – 2015
Dimensions: 12x20 inches
Additional Information: Salt used in print harvested from Spiral Jetty, Frame made of reclaimed driftwood from Great Salt Lake.
In 2008 I went to Robert Smithson’s ‘Spiral Jetty’ with an empty bucket, a shovel and an idea. I wanted to make photographs using salt from Utah’s Great Salt Lake.
This process, or making images using salt was the beginning of photography and was discovered in 1834 and patented by William Henry Fox Talbot in England in 1841. Silver nitrate (AgNo) is not light sensitive until it comes in contact with organic material, and in Talbot’s case, he used common salt (NaCl) available at the time. He coated parchment paper with alternating layers of salt water and silver nitrate dissolved in water, and placing those papers into cameras, could create a negative image of what lay in front of the lens. Reversing the negative into a positive was a simple matter once the sensitizing of the salted paper was achieved.
It was this ‘Salted Paper’ process that I had intended to use to make photographs of Great Salt Lake. I had been photographing the lake for 15 years and it had become the subject of my thesis for my MfA degree from USU. When Hikmet invited me to participate in the show, I knew that the time to seriously begin making prints from Jetty Salt had arrived.
Making prints from salt collected at Spiral Jetty would see me delving into the depths of salt washing, distilling, evaporating, purifying and filtering out the various bits of organic matter that is normally found in Great Salt Lake. Once I had purified the Jetty Salt it was ready to mix into a 2% solution and coated onto high quality hot-press watercolor paper. I chose to use Fabriano Artistico for my early tests.
There is a section of Great Salt Lake that has been separated from the natural body of the lake by an intricate network of canals and causeways, using dozens of large diesel-powered pumps to move salt water through various shallow basins that utilize solar evaporation to concentrate the brine as necessary. US Magnesium manages the land in a lease from the State of Utah that has allowed them to manipulate the land and water from the lake in the extraction of various chemical, mineral and heavy-metal resources. It is an undertaking of monumental proportion and is the world’s most extensive industrial use of solar energy.
This image shows one of the evaporation ponds in the area where millions of tons of salt are extracted. Foam is whipped up by strong winds and rolls across the landscape like bubbly tumbleweeds. In the background is the plume from the smokestack at US Magnesium. The Stansbury Basin ponds shown in the foreground annually bring in between 19 and 35 million gallons of lake water annually. The magnitude of this evaporation step is illustrated by the fact that less than one percent of the volume of the original Great Salt Lake brine finally reaches the plant for manufacture of magnesium. In concentrating the brine, about five million metric tons of salts are deposited in the ponds each year.
The frame for this piece is made from driftwood that I have collected from the shores of Great Salt Lake. It is hard to know exactly what structure the wood has come from, but the main wooden structure that has been on the lake is the railroad bridge called the Lucin Cutoff. It was built out of Douglass Fir and Redwood between February 1902 and March 1904. This particular wood was collected on the beach on the west side of Promontory Point in December of 2014.
Kimberly Anderson
January 2015
Kimberley..what a magnificent story!! that is one of the best salt prints I have ever seen. most photographers have little success but you have made it work!
thank you for the inspiration!
best,peter
Nice background story and a beautiful print
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