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Having successfully transferred the laser prints of my photos onto aluminium plate, the next step is etching in copper sulfate/salt. To improve the etch I put the etching solution in a plastic box and that into a bowl of hot water thus raising the temperature of the etch. In etching this series of plates I found that I could get 2 etches from 500cc of solution before the solution loses its potency. The “clouds” were added using a vegetable oil as the resist – applied with a feather. The plates are displayed below. #photoetching

I’ve cracked it! Using acetone to transfer laserprint onto aluminium plate ready for #etching. Plates on the left in this photo the peeled-off prints on the right. What made the difference to getting success every time? 1. Preparing the plates with 1200 wet and dry emery paper then a bit of a polish with chrome cleaner – wash off the remains of the chrome cleaner with white Spirit and wipe clean. 2. Pouring the acetone based nail-polish remover (Must contain Isopropyl Alcohol) on the back of the paper rather than onto the plate and pressing the paper onto that. 3. Smoothing and pressing with a bamboo baren and then removing the paper before it has dried and stuck to the plate. #aluiminium #photoetching #Etching #Printmaking

After my initial experiments with the etching process, I started today to apply what I have learned to my Exmoor tree images. (See previous etching blog for my first steps in this process). I opened one of my images into Photoshop, increased the contrast, applied the “Posterise” function and then deleted the background elements I didn’t want to print. The image was then flipped horizontally, and resized to fit the plate. This was then printed on the laser printer. The polished plate was cleaned thoroughly with white spirit, then covered in nail polish remover before applying the printed image, resting gently on the plate while the acetone softens the toner. Then a few layers of newspaper are placed on top of the image before adding a weight and leaving for a couple of hours. Once the weight hs been removed the now dry plate has the paper printed image stuck to it. The paper needs to be soaked off in warm soapy water and gently rubbed away leaving the toner image on the plate. To add some texture to the sky I brushed on some vegetable oil (Thanks Tony Martin – see reference – for this tip). With the addition of Sodium Biosulfite to the Salt/Copper Sulfite solution to aid the etching process (See Reference), the plate was placed in the solution for 10 minutes, gently brushing away the copper deposits with a feather. The etched plate was cleaned and used to produce relief prints. However the backround printed as intensely as the tree. (Print on the left, plate on the right). After a number of trials it became clear this could be controlled with the stiffness of the paper. It turns out that 200g/sm Inkjet/laser photopaper (Matte) works superbly. Very rewarding morining’s work. Reference Nik Semenoff “When I developed my copper sulfate etch in 1992, I realized that mixing sodium bisulfate into the bath to keep aluminium hydroxide from forming, was actually making a weak hydrochloric acid that produced hydrogen in reaction with the metal, which gently lifted the pure copper particles out of the etched lines.” Tony Martin #aluminium #Etching

Well, some success and still some failures(learning opportuntites). Saggy bellows have caused a shadow on the negative and one or two film holders have small gaps – now filled.  But the ones that worked I am very pleased with. The big challenge is metering correctly to set the exposure. I realised that in trying to increase the exposures I had been getting, I had been metering the highlights instead of the midtones. River Axe – set up for the shot F8 1/30s print and negative – Focus not great Cornwall F8 1/100s print and negative – Bellows drooped causing shadow F8 1/30s print and negative – Just right 🙂 #Landscape #camera #Photography #bellows #ThorntonPickard #film

My Boots branded 100 year old Thornton Pickard camera has a new addition – a mechanical shutter. This allows me to shoot at speeds under 1 second. With these faster speeds I can use 200 ISO sheet film instead of the much slower photo paper. To measure the speed of this shutter, I fixed it in front of my digital fuji XT20. I set the Fuji on a 5 second exposure on f8 (as wide as the old camera goes). This gave me time after pressing the Fuji shutter to then trigger the old shutter. I then viewed the histogram of the image taken – which was of course, at the speed of the old shutter. I then moved the old shutter out of the way and took a few images on the Fuji adjusting the shutter speed until I found a speed that gave me a similar histogram to that obtained with the old shutter. This turned out to be a useful 1/30s. The speed of the old shutter can be changed – but it is a bit of a fiddle. #camera #film #Photography #ThorntonPickard

In order to access shutter speeds of less than 1s I need a mechanical shutter. I found one on eBay for a bargain price – and it is in good mechanical working order. The challenge was to attach it to the camera as the rubber seal has gone solid. I first rigged a plastic adapter to put the shutter on the front of the lens. This did work OK, but isn’t very elegant. Next, I looked at putting the shutter between the lens and the camera body. I didn’t want to make too many cuts, or changes to the camera or shutter so fabricated a frame to hold the shutter onto which the lens could be mounted. I only needed to make 3 small screw holes into the lens mounting plate. This has worked well, so will now stain the frame to finish it off. Next step (in the next blog) is to measure/adjust the shutter so I know what speed it is running at. #camera #film #Photography #ThorntonPickard

Today was bringing together my photography and my relief printing. Starting with a B&W photo with a lot of contrast – An old oak door in Ludlow, Shropshire: (See blog of 7th Jan 2019 for further developments) #aluminium #coppersulfate #Etching

I now have some 7″x5″ sheet film for the antique Thornton Pickard (Boots) bellows camera. Unfortunately the film/plate holders are slightly less than 7″x5″ so in complete darkness, using masking tape stuck to the bed of the guillotine as guides, I trimmed down the film to fit. What you see here is my third day’s experiments – Day one produced under-exposed images, day two over-exposed and today – just right (mostly).  Setting up the still life by the kitchen window, I took light readings off each piece of fruit and the black paper backgroud – yielding recommended exposure times ranging from 4 to 30s at F32. As the 30s was for the black background I went for a 20s exposure and was very happy with the result. I used the same settings for my portrait shot. Contact prints were made, experimenting with exposure here too. I am exposing using a flashgun held 45cm above the paper. The flashgun has a controllable intensity. – level 4 seems optimum – but doesn’t give quite the contrast I hoped for – I have ordered some filters on ebay to make the flashgun light more magenta as I have read this increases contrast – we’ll find out when they arrive. Optimum exposure for the film and print Under-exposed print (flash setting 3) Over-exposed print (flash setting 5) One problem was the film/plate holders are old and fragile and some wood splintered off – the pieces that make them light-tight. So I had to make (using some mahogany veneer) replacement pieces. The other problem I have encountered with these film holders is that the metal plates that sit in the middle separating the two pieces of film have springy pieces in the middle and these scratch the film and they don’t fit too well either. I am replacing these with stiff black paper and we’ll see how they perform. My Day two efforts were outside – around Glastonbury – Godney. The light was too bright and I had to deal with exposure times of only half a second with this ISO 200 film even on F64. It wasn’t possible to accurately judge taking off and replacing the lens cap in these circumstances – though I did try. I have sourced on Ebay a shutter mechanism that will fit on the front of the lens allowing me to make theses shorter exposure times. Something to play with over Christmas 🙂 #darkroom #thornton #Vintage #camera #Photography #wet #halfplate #halfplate #pickard #film

I like trying photograpy in new situations and Wednesday evening saw us at a friend’s party with live band and the request to take some pictures. Space was tight and the light was low – and often just red. My compact, mirrorless XT20 worked great here. Even when an ISO of 12800 was needed to freeze the movement of the band members.  Black and white conversion in Silver FX Pro2 helped create the dramatic look I was after. #musician #Rocknroll

Having the chemicals and photo paper to hand, I thought I’d try a coffee-tin pinhole camera. I drilled a 2mm hole into the tin and sanded the inside of the tin to remove the burr. I had read a perfect hole is needed for the best images. I lined the inside of the tin with black paper and cut some photo paper to fit inside. On-line at Exposure Times for Pinhole Photography – rahji.comwww.rahji.com/wordpress/2007/05/12/pinhole-exposure-times/ I found that my camera has an f stop of 35. Using my iPhone’s Lux app to measure the exposure on the basis that the photo paper is ISO6 I got an exposure time of 10 seconds. My results have encouraged me to explore this further. #pinhole

Time to get some exercise – The tide was up at 9am in nearby Clevedon and at this time of year we get good flocks of waders overwintering. Today, no large flocks – the weather is very mild at the moment, but a small flock of the usual redshank roosting on the rocks above the level of the tide, and later a group of 5 goosander drifted by. Sitting up on Wain’s hill and just watching the tide rapidly recede, The clouds parted and a shaft of sunlight illuminated the river mouth – nice! #clevedon

The iphone Lux app reading indicated F2.8 Iso 6 for 15s. In fact 2.25 mins was needed. This needs investigation. Interesting that since the paper negative is not sensitive to red light that the oranges in the RH image showed up as so dark. Still some work to do on focussing – though with such  wide aperture the depth of field is going to be very shallow. #Stilllife