Hi all. I suppose most of you are familiar with the solargraphy project (taking 6 month pinhole exposures tracking the sun's path in the sky from solstice to solstice:http://www.solargraphy.com). I've been pinholing on and off now for a long time but Justin Quinnel's photo from Bristol really wowed me - not that fact that it took 6 months but that he didn't develop it, just scanned the undeveloped paper neg. So it got me thinking. I like the fact that it bridges silver and digital but I can't help feeling there is greater quality to be achieved by staying in silver but the question is how?
You can't develop the paper neg normally or it will just go black straight away, so I was wondering if you could develop it with very diluted developer. I use Ilford multigrade developer at 1+9/20 degrees Celsius but what if I increased the dilution factor to 1+20 or more and lowered the temperature. It would take time obviously - almost like lith developer - but would it actually work?
The alternative is to use lith developer but my fear is that it will all just turn grey to greyer to black and the image will be lost.
Any thoughts?
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