Lith Prints: On the Nature of Daylight
The last two days I had finally had the evenings for myself! First time this year I could actually work on my own photos. Sometimes I think I ought to quit my job 
Not long before those evenings I also finally came around to developing some film I had laying around from last year. The contact prints made me wanna grab my lith paper so I did. The prints are untoned and so on, test prints actually to see which way this series would go on lith but I love them already. This will be continued but I felt like sharing them anyway with some more inspirational stuff.
Kodak T-Max 100 I Hasselblad 500C/M + 50mm CF FLE I Paper: Rollei Vintage 131 FB I Developer: Rollei Vintage Developer (Lith) 1+1+24 I Exposure: f5,6 5 sec I Development: about 7 min. 36 sec I Untoned
Kodak T-Max 100 I Hasselblad 500C/M + 50mm CF FLE I Paper: Rollei Vintage 131 FB I Developer: Rollei Vintage Developer (Lith) 1+1+24 I Exposure: f5,6 5 sec I Development: about 7 min. 35 sec I Untoned
Kodak T-Max 100 I Hasselblad 500C/M + 50mm CF FLE I Paper: Rollei Vintage 131 FB I Developer: Rollei Vintage Developer (Lith) 1+1+24 I Exposure: f5,6 5 sec I Development: about 8 min. 06 sec I Untoned
Kodak T-Max 100 I Hasselblad 500C/M + 50mm CF FLE I Paper: Rollei Vintage 131 FB I Developer: Rollei Vintage Developer (Lith) 1+1+24 I Exposure: f5,6 5 sec I Development: about 7 min. 20 sec I Untoned
Kodak T-Max 100 I Hasselblad 500C/M + 50mm CF FLE I Paper: Rollei Vintage 131 FB I Developer: Rollei Vintage Developer (Lith) 1+1+24 I Exposure: f5,6 5 sec I Development: about 7 min. 35 sec I Untoned
Kodak T-Max 100 I Hasselblad 500C/M + 50mm CF FLE I Paper: Rollei Vintage 131 FB I Developer: Rollei Vintage Developer (Lith) 1+1+24 I Exposure: f5,6 5 sec I Development: about 7 min. 35 sec I Untoned
The title of the series comes from Max Richter. I’m such a big fan of his work. He made a remix of his original song combined with the lyrics of Dinah Washington’s song dating from 1960.
“This bitter Earth
Well, what fruit it bears?
Ooooh
This bitter Earth
And if my life
Is like the dust
Oooh, that hides
The glow of a rose
What good am I?
Heaven only knows.
Lord, this bitter Earth
Yes, can be so cold
Today you’re young
Too soon, you’re old
But while a voice
Within me cries
I’m sure someone may answer my call.
And this bitter Earth
Ooooh, may not
Ooooh, be so bitter
After all.
This bitter Earth
Lord, this bitter Earth
What good is love
Mmmm, that no one shares?
And if my life
Is like the dust
That hides
The glow of a rose
What good am I?
Heaven only knows.”
I hope you enjoy this post!
-Indra
Lith Print of a Clear Glass Ambrotype
As said before I also made my first real clear glass ambrotype, aka a glass negative, in Montzen. Yesterday I tried to make a lith print out of it. Very much to my liking! The grain really adds to the ambience and feel of the image.
I used Rollei Vintage 131 Fiber paper and made the first print on 18×24 cm paper to try it out. I loved it so much I”ll be making a large print as soon as the paper arrives: 50×60 cm. Also, this was my first go with the Omega D2 enlarger…wow..that thing is awesome!!! Beautiful machine which I’ll use a whole lot more often now that I got it working with the 4×5″ glass plate holder.
The only thing needed to be done was the toning part. I always used selenium toner before but also bought gold toner a while back. With selenium the tone, or wouldn’t hardly change, or make it more red. Both was just not what I had in mind. Luckily I remembered my gold toner in time so I ordered 2 more liters for the large print and tonight tested it. The prints are still wet so I’ll scan and post them tomorrow. Impressions: 4 minutes were too long; too blue. With 2 minutes I kept a little warmish yellow and got a little blueish and that was exactly what I was after.
Sure, with lith printing the true characteristics of Collodion have practically gone (though not really if you look carefully) so you might wonder why. First of all, because I couldn’t wait making and printing my first collodion negative! Secondly, lith printing is what I know (a little) and came to love (traditional bw printing has gotten boring to me) so this was the way to go for now. I’m still trying to figure out which processes I’m going to dive into for printing the collodion negatives but time has not really been on my side so far. Thirdly and most importantly, because I like it! So eat it!
Anyway, a happy goose here and I’m looking forward to the big print!
-Indra
Darkroom Expansion Awesomeness !!!
Not too long ago I met someone who was thinking about giving up his darkroom. Only what to do with the stuff in it? Fortunately for me he decided he’d donate me what I would like of it as long as I would not sell anything. A dream really!! Especially since the collection consisted of an Omega D2 4×5″ enlarger which caught my interest as I’m planning on making Collodion negatives for printing purposes. All I was missing was an enlarger. Until now 
So the last 2 days existed of recreating and reorganizing the darkroom to make some work space for this humongous thing. Long overdue anyway, reorganizing the darkroom, so the timing was rather perfect really. Now all is set to go, the work space has to be adjusted some more but that’ll flow once I do. And, I feel the urge to go and do something again and use my new camera as well!
I collected some large trays (50 x 60 cm), also some from this recent event.
And here is my new love: the Omega D2! Along with some large papers I also received
My new work space addition from the other side
I am totally gonna rock my ass off in there the next couple of… well… whatever how long
All I have to dig up from somewhere is a carrier for 4×5″ glass negatives but I’m sure that won’t take long! It’s pretty complete though. 2 carriers for 6×6, 1 for 35mm, 1 for 9×12 and 1 for 4×5″ negatives. Condensers, lamps and lenses included, one 80mm and one 150mm, forgot the exact type. Anyway, happy happy happy and a thank you!!
Ow, and I took a photograph of a list with all the negative carriers for the Omega D series for the ones that might be interested. If you’d like to have a high-res file shoot me an email: indra [at] contrastique [dot] nl
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