Van Dyke

The Vandyke Brown Print

The Vandyke brown print is based on the first iron-silver process, the argentotype, invented in 1842 by the English astronomer, Sir John Herschel. Both processes utilize the action of light on ferric salts and their chemistry is very similar. The Vandyke process gets its name from its similarity in color to the deep brown pigment used by the Flemish painter Van Dyck. Vandyke brown prints are very simple and economical to make, with the sensitizer consisting of three readily available chemicals. Clearing is carried out in water and fixing is done in a weak solution of hypo.

Vandyke Formula

The following formula was taken from Bob Schramm’s article in Post-Factory Photography. I have tried varying the amounts of each of the three ingredients but have found the basic formula to give the best results. Adding more tartaric acid seemed to increase contrast slightly and move the image color to a more neutral gray but then graininess became a problem. Adding more silver nitrate didn’t have much effect, as was the case with more ferric ammonium citrate. I doubled the amount of all the chemicals in the formula in an attempt to make a single coat solution and got excellent contrast with rich blacks but grain was again a problem. A drop or two of 1% gold chloride can be added to the sensitizer just before coating to move the image color towards purplish-brown. 

Solution A

• Ferric Ammonium Citrate: 9.0 gm
• Distilled Water: 33.0 ml

Solution B

• Tartaric Acid: 1.5 gm
• Distilled Water: 33.0 ml

Solution C

• Silver Nitrate: 3.8 gm
• Distilled Water: 33.0 ml

Combine Solutions A and B and slowly add C while stirring. Pour the sensitizer in a brown bottle and let it age for a few days before using. Keep it stored in a dark place. I keep mine in a covered box. I have used sensitizer that had been sitting around for a year or so and it was fine. 

My Lab works:

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Exposed it for about 3-5 mins, until it turned into a dark color.

This is how it looked after exposure.

Then washed it in the bath. The color turned orange at the beginning. 

But after wash it in the water, it became darker again.

Final Prints:

Cyanotype

Cyanotype photography refers to the process of printing a picture by using sunlight and a series of chemicals. The chemicals involved in cyanotype photography include Prussian blue, aqueous potassium ferricyanide and aqueous ferric ammonium citrate. When producing a cyanotype picture, the paper (or other printing medium) is treated with each of the chemicals.

The image is then placed upon treated paper, weighed down with glass and taken out into the sun. The combination of sunlight and chemicals will then imprint the image onto the paper in a dark blue or gray color. Keep the paper in the sun for five to fifteen minutes, or until the paper is visible bluish-grey.

When the paper has turned, remove the glass and rinse the chemicals off the paper. After the paper is dry, the print is complete.

Objects used in cyanotype photography should be flat and opaque. When using the cyanotype method, remember that the prints turn out best with greater contrast. Also, wear gloves, as the chemicals stain.

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My Lab Prints

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Since it was very cloudy, the exposure time was about 20 minutes.

The color turned into light brown first, and then turned into blueish-gray.

It looked very gray before rinsing in the cold water. I guess part of the reason was because the negative film was not dense enough.

Put the print into the bleach. ( If you soak it too long, it will fade away...)

First shot when I just removed the glass plate from the paper

Rinsing it in cold water.

Then it turned into a beautiful blue color. 

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Final Prints!

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Coffee

Tea - Turned into navy blue

Tea + Strong Ammonia (But bleached too long...)

Tea + Strong Ammonia (Couple of seconds)

My glass photos!!!

A big container for the silver solution - 15% 

Ready to GO!!!

I exposed my first glass plate for about 20 minutes. But after I fixed it, the images just faded away... It was really hard to see the image clearly except the brownish color. I think part of the reason was because the negative film was not dense enough...

So then I exposed my second glass plate for 30 minutes. When I placed it in front of a white background. It looked much better than the first one. 

I'll keep working with the glass plate in week 11~~~

Albumen print

Albumen print

The albumen print, also called albumen silver print, was invented in 1850 by Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard, and was the first commercially exploitable method of producing a photographic print on a paper base from a negative. It used the albumen found in egg whites to bind the photographic chemicals to the paper and became the dominant form of photographic positives from 1855 to the turn of the 20th century, with a peak in the 1860-90 period. During the mid-19th century, the carte de visite became one of the more popular uses of the albumen method. In the 19th century, E. & H. T. Anthony & Company were the largest makers and distributors of the Albumen photographic prints and paper in the United States.

The process of making an albumen print

1. A piece of paper, usually 100% cotton, is coated with an emulsion of egg white (albumen) and salt (sodium chloride or ammonium chloride), then dried. The albumen seals the paper and creates a slightly glossy surface for the sensitizer to rest on.
2. The paper is then dipped in a solution of silver nitrate and water which renders the surface sensitive to UV light.
3. The paper is then dried in the absence of UV light.
4. The dried, prepared paper is placed in a frame in direct contact under a negative. The negative is traditionally a glass negative with collodion emulsion, but this step can be performed with a modern silver halide negative, too. The paper with negative is then exposed to light until the image achieves the desired level of darkness, which is typically a little lighter than the end product. Though direct sunlight was used long ago, a UV exposure unit is preferable because it is more predictable, as the paper is most sensitive to ultraviolet light.
5. A bath of sodium thiosulfate fixes the print’s exposure, preventing further darkening.
6. Optional gold or selenium toning improves the photograph’s tone and stabilizes against fading. Depending on the toner, toning may be performed before or after fixing the print.

Because the image emerges as a direct result of exposure to light, without the aid of a developing solution, an albumen print may be said to be a printed rather than a developed photograph.

The table salt (sodium chloride) in the albumen emulsion forms silver chloride when in contact with silver nitrate. Silver chloride is unstable when exposed to light, which makes it decompose into silver and chlorine. The silver ion (Ag+) is reduced to silver (Ag) by addition of an electron during the development/printing process, and the remaining silver chloride is washed out during fixing. The black parts of the image are formed by metallic silver (Ag).

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My Lab Print

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| Gelatin on watercolor paper |

It was a sunny day. The exposure time was about 5 - 8 mins. It's more stable than Albumen I think. 

The image that is commonly known as a black and white photographic print is created from a film's negative. The film suspends light-sensitive silver halides in a gelatin which is rinsed away during processing. The silver that remains on the film emulsion reveals the latent image on the film's base, from which a photographic print is created. 

If a photographer is creating a gelatin silver print, the selection of paper for the realization of the print also contains silver halides. In the development of a gelatin silver print the paper goes through a similar chemical transition as described above for processing film and the resulting photographic print is know as a gelatin silver print.

| Albumen on Stonehenge with two coats of albemen |

It turned out very well at the beginning. But when I fixed it in the bath. The print was really unstable and it could be easily scraped off... which made me felt a little disappointed. But the color was still looks pretty good. And I love the sense of the old film it gave me. :-)

Camera Obscura

Camera Obscura

- A very basic camera obscura is a device that produces an image of some of its surroundings onto a screen.

- It is used in drawing and entertainment, and its invention led to photography

- It is a box with a hole in one side, and light, bounces off a scene outside, and then passes through this hole and hits a surface inside the box , where the image is reproduced, upside down, but with color

- This idea wasn’t exactly new, because observations of this type of thing happening in daily life had been observed by the likes of Aristotle (300BC)

- The idea continued to be developed over many centuries by various inventers such as Anthemius of Tralles (6th century) who kind of developed the Hagia Sophia, and Roger Bacon (13th century) who realized it could be used for solar eclipses, and they continued to be refined and improved over hundreds of years.

- People would trace the image that was projected onto the screen, and this happened in camera obscuras that were the size of a room; technically not photography this was a start. Eventually the idea of film was incorporated into the camera obscura

- The Camera Obscura was eventually modeled into the camera like devises, and is credited with making the first photographs

- The Camera Obscura is still a style of photography used today because of the interesting images it produces
There have even been cameras, such as the hagia Sophia, that have been created with the intention of making camera obscura style photos 

The above image was frequently copied in such publications as Lardner, Museum of Science and Art,1855. Note the also common irregular depiction of scale between the artist and the camera obscura.

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My Camera Obscura

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back side

front side

And last, there is a cool video of camera obscura on Youtube:

Amazing Photos!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/21553944@N03/sets/72157623005145284/show/

Please check more images of Wet Plate Process on Flicker!

:-)

Collodian Wet Plate Process

The collodion process is an early photographic process, which was replaced at the end of the 19th century with dry plates—glass plates with a photographic emulsion of silver halides suspended in gelatin. The gelatin had the effect of greatly increasing the speed of the plates enabling shorter exposure times.

The wet plate collodion process was still in use in the printing industry in the 1960s for line and tone work (mostly printed material involving black type against a white background) as for large work it was much cheaper than gelatin film.

The process is said to have been invented, almost simultaneously, by Frederick Scott Archer andGustave Le Gray in about 1850. During the following 30 to 40 years it was popular, and many photographers and experimenters refined the process.