----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, June 04, 2007 6:15 AM
Subject: Processing giant pinhole paper
negatives - was Re: Vey quiet lately
----- Original Message -----
A fascinating project, Guy. I seem to
remember you telling us how you processed these huge prints, but I don't
remember. When you have time, could you remind me,
please?
Marylin,
There are a few pictures of the making of
the first ginant pinhole project back in 2002 at the following
URL
(Note that this was my first experience with giant pinhole paper
negatives. I have since improved considerably my technique to get
much more balanced prints with a great deal of intermediate greys and a lot
less vignetting than shown here. I have pretty well given up on trying
to get a decent positive from the giant paper negative through contact
printing. But if someone asked for a positive with a sufficiently
attractive proposal, I would of course go ahead and make one...).
One picture on the web page referred above
shows the giant 5x10 feet processing trays we used at the
time. These were handmade from construction timber and heavy-gauge
plastic. They required 100 liters of chemical...! I've
since moved to a much simpler process where the paper is rolled and unrolled
in a "wall-tapestry" sort of tray requiring much less chemistry. This
time around, I hope to access a darkroom that specialises in very large format
processing and where I would not have to worry about the processing.
This would make my life easier.
The thing to be particularly careful is not to crease the paper,
since a crease will kill the print as far as gallery or museum
acquisition. When wet, fiber paper becomes as soft and floppy as a
ragdoll and that makes the whole processing process very challenging.
Drying is also very challenging. If I can access a large studio, I
will try to suspend the print from the ceiling for drying.
This is the best way. But drying on a screen is also
good. In all instances it is hard to find a place where
you can hang-dry a large number of giant prints...
Guy
