
- #DARKROOM SOAK PHOTOFLOW FULL#
- #DARKROOM SOAK PHOTOFLOW PLUS#
- #DARKROOM SOAK PHOTOFLOW WINDOWS#
Simple fixer – you will need 70g of sodium thiosulfate penta. Dektol Developer – you will need 25g per 100’ of film. This is optional if you are not processing a film with a remjet coating. Prewash Borax – 50g of 20 mule Team Borax from Walmart will work fine. You will need a simple timer, 5 minutes will work well. You will need some place to hand the film to dry. You will need a Dark tank or you will have to do the whole process in the dark. You will need 2 or 3 one gallon plastic pitchers for mixing your chemicals. Just someplace truly dark, a photo darkroom or even a dark closet – room at night. #DARKROOM SOAK PHOTOFLOW PLUS#
Black and white films like tri – x and plus x.
Regular color films like ektachrome and fuji color films. Color Intermediate film like 72 - If you are interested in buying some of this film you can find it on my ebay page. This way the size is arbitrary, perfect flatness is easy, and you can stack a matt inside if you want a framed effect. **Since the making of this tutorial I’ve found that the best/cheapest/most-flexible solution is to make a gaffer-tape-hinged plexiglass sandwhich. The print will dry flat and darken slightly. Place a fabric layer (or two) followed by a large flat object on top of the print. Hang the soaked print with clothespins to drain for a bit, and then lay it flat to dry.
If desired add a bit of diluted hydrogen peroxide to help darken the blue. Wash paper by cycling tap water until the water runs clear. Remove negative and place negative back into protective folio. Place negative on top of the paper and expose to sun for 15 minutes. Paint the paper with the combined solution with the brush. Make 20% ferric ammonium citrate with distilled water. Make 8% potassium ferricyanide solution with distilled water. Print a negative image on the transparency with an Epson inkjet. Somerset Printmaking cotton rag paper (selected based on a test by alternativephotography of papers). Ferric Ammonium Citrate and Potassium Ferricyanide. Laura was very patient and flexible when I suggested that we do this tutorial during her vacation visiting me in South Beach. Stu’s image of two female models is seen in the unprocessed cyanotype and intraneg. Thanks to Stu, a good friend of mine in Miami, and my cousin Laura who helped me make this tutorial. However, just to get started and produce some half-decent prints is very easy. The process is highly hands-on and producing consistent, high quality results is very hard and requires enormous patience, knowledge (luck doens’t hurt either!). #DARKROOM SOAK PHOTOFLOW WINDOWS#
Finally you can work in a normal subdued-light room (you should pull the shades, but you don’t need to block out the windows and tape the corners of doors!).
#DARKROOM SOAK PHOTOFLOW FULL#
You create your own negative using Photoshop and an inkjet printer, meaning you have full control over contrast/tonal-curves/compositing/retouching. You print on any surface which will absorb liquid, so any fine art cotton paper or fabric will work. Since it is a contact-print print-process you don’t need an enlarger, just a sheet of plexi or glass. Stains can be washed out easily before they are exposed and with some effort once exposed. In a cyanotype workroom you deal with only two relatively benign chemicals. You need to work in a nearly light-free environment with only amber photo-safe working lights and good ventilation is very important. You are limited to the type of manipulations possible in a darkroom (dodging, burning, basic compositing, and some basic tonal-curve adjustments like contrast and shoulder/foot adjustments. You need developer, stop bath, fixer, and photoflo for the film and a different developer for paper. You print only on special photographic paper the variety and availability of which is dwindling as the world moves away from film. You project the image from film through an enlarger, and enlargers are becoming harder to find/service/repair. In a traditional darkroom you deal with smelly chemicals which stain anything and everything and are often carcinogenic. Because of the chemical process it depends on cyanotypes can be done in a general purpose room and requires very little specialized gear. Since maintaining a full black+white wet darkroom based on a silver-halide process is now extremely impractical, cyanotypes allow me to tap into that magic again. Having grown up shooting film, processing the film myself, and printing the film in a traditional darkroom I love the ability to get my hands wet and create the final image rather than just “push print” and to yet again watch a latent image materialize at the bottom of a photo try after exposure to light.
This blue-toned printing process is a hands on art form in which an image is permanently printed on normal cotton rag fine art paper. One of my passions is creating traditional-chemical-based cyanotypes.