Printing

Woodbury, Connecticut

Working with the Church picture today. After the two clearing baths, the print gets a 12 minute wash in slowly running water with frequent—every couple minutes—full dumps for complete change of liquid. After the wash I turn the tray sideways to let the print drain. If everything is running smoothly it has about four minutes to drain, then get transferred to the drying screens, before the next print finishes the second clear and needs to get into the wash tray. Processing is simpler than for silver prints—no stubborn hypo to clear from a gelatin emulsion—but the image surface of the wet print is delicate so everything has to go in single file. No batch processing like silver film or prints.