Circular Breathing

"I always try my best to put all my energy into my work, for my greatest desire is to make beautiful things"
Vincent van Gogh, letter 229

Had a startling time in the darkroom this evening.

What started out as a routine session of toning the 3 prints from yesterday turned into a collage of unexpected moments.

3 prints, all from the same neg, looking pretty much the same. The plan was to bleach, analyze the state of things, then proceed to a number of possible toning schemes.

After bleaching the 3 prints I was tempted to stop because the contrast improved, and the missing highlights did not take away from the picture's feel. But I believed I could make the prints better, so I continued.

I decided to try different toning schemes for each picture. The first print I painted sepia into the water and the sky. The bleached back highlights in the middle of the picture were left untoned, and when compared with the warm brown of the top/bottom, it just did not work. I dipped it into some gold toner to see if it would help, but the combination of warm and cold tones still offset the prettiness of the orange tints which were produced.

The second print I immersed in selenium, hoping for a pleasant tone change, but got nothing but a bit of weak red/ocher in the shadows. It sucked.

The third picture I dipped in gold toner. It took on a pleasant bluish haze and increased the contrast further. The print was passable.

I placed the 3 prints into the wash, and was finished for the night.

As I was cleaning up I remembered about doing some trash toning experiments. I had 2 failed prints in the wash, why not use one of them for trash toning? I lifted the hideous painted-on sepia print from the wash and put it into an empty tray, then poured a small amount of developer onto it. I was not expecting anything to happen because I had dipped it into gold toner, which I believed made all further print development mute. However, the highlights immediately began to develop out in a pleasant pink/orange tone. I could not believe what I was seeing, as I was 100% certain that gold toner blocked out silver from redevelopment, but this obviously was not the case. I removed the improved print and placed it in a tray of water.

I wanted to continue experimenting, so I took the selenium toned print and placed it in a tray, then poured developer onto it. A very small amount of pink tone appeared in the sky, but nothing more happened. Selenium, then, did flatten the silver, not allowing redevelopment. The pink tone was more of a staining effect, because the white borders of the print also took on the tone, turning the white paper base into a cream one.

I eyed the third print, which looked pretty good already. I was unsure if I wanted to risk a good print, because sometimes a bird in the hand.... But I had the idea to pour old LD20 developer onto the print, so I removed it from the wash and did just that. The LD20 worked a bit slower than the Dektol developer, but after 45-60 seconds a beautiful pink tone appeared in selective highlights, contrasting very nicely with the bluish haze. I pulled the print out of the LD20, smiling. It appeared to be a gem, and I love making gem-like prints.


Another piece from Mertens :