A mistake comes good

Developed normally

In a recent chat I had with another photographer, there was a lamenting the fact that he had not noticed a problem with his new pinhole camera; well not the camera but a bit of kit he was using with it. He is not the only one not to notice the little tell tail signs that things are not going well. I had the same sort of thing with the lith 200 process I was trying out for the first time. It was not until I started to use different makes of paper that the fault struck me. Up to that point I thought it was part of the process. It turned out that the box of Kentmere paper had been light contaminated (fogged),but when I could not remember.  At this realization two things crossed my mind, what a waste of a box of paper and dam! it is not a peculiarity of the process.

lith 200 Kentmere paper

I changed to a different paper and continued to produce prints. Using the

negatives I had selected for the trial with the lith 200. While I was doing this I had the idea that maybe the fogged paper could be used to creative affect. I chose some of the negs that may lend themselves to this and processed them accordingly. As the first result appeared in the developer, I started to question this creative wisdom as it looked rubbish, but then my perception changed when the photograph of the bottles on the window sill appeared. It did not look out of place, in fact it added to it a sort of early twentieth century feel. Maybe my idea wasn't such a bad one after all!.

lith 200 Forma paper

What I'm getting at is just because it has gone wrong there is no need to throw the baby out with the water so to speak! With a little lateral thinking creatively you can turn things round. Some of you may think I'm talking a load of rubbish ( I'm being polite) but it is surprising how often a mistake can come good.

lith 200 Kentmere paper