My last blog spoke of ‘re-direction….’ and someone questioned the image I connected to that blog. But wait….hear me out. My intent of over-exposing an image related to my ‘intent of my inten’t, or….what am I going to do with that image that is over-exposed slightly.
My intent….? to create an image, high in contrast….so I could have an image that is in the acceptable category for the salt printing process. Salt printing needs ‘high contrast’ images to work with. If I had a regular exposed image, the salt printed final product image would appear dark and under-exposed. In fact, it is the skin tones I need to worry most about. If not ‘white or light gray’ the skin becomes lost in the background. It is best in the salt printing process to have slight over-exposure, knowing that the image isn’t being created for detail and sharpness. Hence, I can get away with a bit of over-exposure to bring out a high contrast end product.
High Contrast is critical when I work with Salt Printing. And, as I now find myself in the middle of the salt printing process (but working with a different image), I have to admit, it is a process. Not difficult by any means….but, one does have to pay attention to small detail. Again, not rocket science but little things such as totally dry images or paper coated with silver nitrate. Detail pertains to correctly burning or dodging where needed. Or detail implies selecting the right medium to being with. Do you use a wet inverted transparency film or a dry inverted print on regular paper? Is it emulsion to emulsion? If you do a wet transparency film, you can go for emulsion to emulsion while a dry print is the opposite. How does one spread the silver nitrate without created dots under the UV light? How to feather the edges? How to know when to take out of the UV light? 6 minutes? 8? ….9 or 10? ….
You see….salt printing while simple by nature, is far from simple. Just having the right paper is one thing….the right chemicals, the right image etc…. is not ‘IT”….. for “IT” also is in the detail. Below is a photo I took with my 35mm and 400 Fomapan. It was shot inside a building with just a hint of light shining on this ‘candid’ subject. I like the way this print turned out although the funny thing is the sepia still shows. I have another print of this where it is more ‘brown’…. I haven’t figured out why yet.
The second image below has been inverted so it becomes a negative. I will take this negative and use it in the salt printing process.
