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

Light striped prints

Another printing fault is light pollution known as fog. This is assuming it hasn't happened in the camera.

The dark line you see running up this picture
 it the result of light
getting to the light sensitive material. Fogging .

●         It Could be where stray light from a darkroom not properly blacked out has found its way to the light sensitive side of the the paper you're using.

●         Your safe light is too close to the enlarger and or the wrong colour.

●         It can also happen if your enlarger leaks light when being used.

●         Badly stored and out of date paper can also be fogged.

The causes of these faults, also point to ways of curing them. This post suggests a way of detecting light induced fog.

Darkroom fog!? Safe light.

No I'm not talking about the weather but about the lighting in your darkroom. Is it safe? Is it the right colour? Is it to close to the enlarger or developing dishes? How do you find out?

There is a simple test, you will need to cut some photographic paper into about 6x6 (150 x150mm) and lay them flat in various places with the lights off around the darkroom with a small object like a coin on the top. Don't forget to mark each piece with the location you have placed it in. Switch on the safe light(s) and leave them for five minutes.

Then develop all the pieces as you would normally, if they all come out blank then there is not a problem. However if you can see the image of the object/coin on any of them you know that the light is too strong in that place and will fog any paper you leave out. You could move the light further away. Now if all the bits of paper show signs of an image it means that the safe light is the wrong colour and will need to be changed or your darkroom is not light tight.