Prints (and new glasses)

Woodbury, Connecticut

Back in my own darkroom this afternoon a couple days after the Penumbra Traditional (from film) workshop. Four Pt/Pd prints snapped with my iPhone as they sat in the second clearing bath, from my "Winter Woods" series shot over the last several months. I did these with an M-4/3s Panasonic GX7 and a variety of Panasonic and Olympus lenses. Digital negatives made with the procedure that I teach in my "digital platinum" workshops. 6.75x9 inch prints using a drop count of 10 ferric oxalate, 8 standard Pd, 2 standard Pt, plus 1 10% Tween20 on Hahnemühle Platinum Rag.

Also, this morning I picked up my new eyeglasses made to a very overdue new prescription. I had splurged and in addition to my bifocals, I ordered a pair of single vision "computer glasses" which hit best focus at something like two to three times reading distance. When I put the first humidified sheet of paper down at the coating station, I said to myself, wait, this is about two times reading distance! I changed to the computer glasses, and found that I could coat the sheet standing comfortably upright, instead of constantly bending over and craning my neck to see the faint pencil lines that mark the coating area. So, other people may have computer glasses, but...

Here I am with my new Darkroom Glasses.

A platinum/palladium 35mm Contact Sheet

New York, New York, Penumbra Foundation

At my Penumbra Foundation Traditional Platinum Workshop last weekend, Michael Page Miller brought several rolls of 35mm film dating back to the 1970s. Just to see what would happen, we tried making a Pt/Pd contact sheet from one. Maybe a first? But not the first exotic experience for this roll of film. Michael tells me it was shot in Peru in 1971—bulk loaded cassettes developed in the field with processing chemicals warmed on a small brass SVEA 123 camping stove and low-grade gasoline for fuel. But it worked.

Traditional Platinum Workshop, Day One

We began by making five new photographs together, using 5x7 inch film, working on the Penumbra Foundation rooftop and Studio B. The idea was to demonstrate proper exposure for Pt/Pd negs. Then we developed them in PMK pyro. After I demonstrated coating and prep, and development and clearing techniques using the group portrait, each of the five students got to make one print by the end of the day. Today, we'll be printing all day long from the eight negatives, using Hahnemühle Platinum Rag paper.

Platinum, printing, and workshop

Twenty-five milliliters of freshly mixed platinum solution. I'm printing a new set of small Pt/Pd prints from a picture series made over the past couple months in forest parks and preserves here in Connecticut.

Also, I'll be teaching my "digital platinum" workshop this coming weekend at The Penumbra Foundation in NYC—I understand there are a couple places left.

Here are iPhone snaps of this morning's four prints in the clearing baths.

Workshop News: Leica/Platinum Workshop

On the weekend of October 13-14 I'll lead a special edition of my "digital/platinum" workshop at The Penumbra Foundation in New York, in cooperation with The Leica Akademie, USA. The workshop will be tailored to creation of platinum/palladium prints from Leica digital camera files.

(White Memorial Conservation Center, 2018—Leica MM246 with 1980s-vintage 35mm Summicron)

You don't need to own a digital Leica to attend—in fact the Leica folks will have a selection of Leica M and SL equipment for participants to try out. You can make some pictures in the Penumbra studios or out on the streets of mid-town Manhattan and over the next few hours produce Pt/Pd prints from them. You can experiment with the latest Leica gear, and make platinum prints the same weekend!

(Brewster, New York, 2018—Leica MM246 with 1980s-vintage 35mm Summicron)

The workshop is set to go, however there are still some spaces available.

Pt/Pd prints from Leica Monochrom Captures

Thought I'd put up copy shots of recent printing. Conveying what a platinum/palladium print looks like in a web file is kind of a fool's errand, but it's better than having nothing to show at all. As background to this work—I'll be teaching a workshop this Fall at the Penumbra Foundation in New York, in cooperation with Leica Akademie. It will be a variation on my "digital platinum" workshop, modified to specifically support Leica Monochrom users (or people who are Monochrom-curious). The one-channel files really are different to work with than normal Bayer-array RGB files. Finding that out and getting a handle on working with the files is why I had a loaner MM-246 for a couple weeks recently.
These eight pictures are the first that I've printed from the 1500 or so captures I made with the camera. I shot these with my 35mm Summicron and 50mm Noctilux, both lenses dating back to the 1980s. After adjusting the files in Adobe Camera Raw, they were output using my digital negative system, making negs on Fixxons film with an Epson 3880 printer. The prints are a Pt/Pd mixture with only about 10% Pt (I find that with most papers a small amount of traditional Pt makes a marked improvement over pure Pd, but that only a small portion of Pt is needed) on Hahnemühle Platinum Rag paper. Potassium oxalate developer, used at room temperature. Multiple clearing baths of a mixture of edta disodium and sodium sulfite.
I like the results with the nature subject matter a lot. The extremely high resolution of the monochrome sensor helps with highly detailed forest scenes. I like the urban subject matter pictures I made with the camera but I'm not so sure they do their best in platinum, though I like the results with the two shown here. There are more pictures in the folder I find interesting enough to print, so I'll be doing more of them in coming days.

First Look

The past couple weeks I had a loaner Leica Monochrome (Typ 246) to work with in preparation for a planned workshop next fall at the Penumbra Foundation. The workshop will be called something like "Digital Platinum for Leica Photographers"—actual title and other details TBD. Aside from satisfying my curiosity (I've used film Leica cameras since 1967 but haven't used the digital models) the idea was to get a good look at how the single-channel files from the b&w-only Monochrom differ from typical Bayer-array RGB digital capture files, in terms of working them up to make digital negatives for Pt/Pd printing.

So here are the first two Pt/Pd prints I've tried, in-process shots while they're in the clearing baths. 11-inch wide prints on 11x15 Hahnemühle Platinum Rag. The first is from the White Memorial Conservation Center in northwestern Connecticut, the second from mid-town Manhattan.

News: Upcoming Workshop

Along the Shepaug at Steep Rock, Washington, Connecticut

That's a copy shot of a 7x11" platinum/palladium print made earlier this week from an original digital capture, by way of a digital internegative.

I've just learned that there are still a couple places available for my "Digital Platinum" workshop at Penumbra Foundation in New York, ten days from now, April 28-29. Follow the link for details. Take the workshop and you'll learn how to make prints like this yourself from digital captures or film scans.

Digital Platinum Workshop

New York, New York

Snaps from last weekend's digital/platinum workshop. I was too busy keeping up with the group to make a series of story-telling pictures about the action, but here are a couple shots. A productive group of four produced negatives from 29 shots, and almost forty Pt/Pd prints during the weekend at Penumbra.

As an additional note, because of very stormy, rainy conditions on Sunday, the workspace (which is not quite finished remodeling/construction) couldn't maintain ideal temperature/humidity conditions for the Hahnemühle Platinum Rag paper we were using. In conditions above 50% humidity print quality suffers compared to around 40%. With the prep area running 65% Rh we experimented with drying as much as possible with cold air and then switching to hot air from a hair dryer, trying to get the paper to "feel right" —as it would prepping at 40%—and the results were excellent. Another nice versatility feature of this paper.

More Printing, Plus Upcoming Workshop

Couple prints today, Pt/Pd on HPR, 11" wide picture area, M-4/3s capture worked up as digital negative. Pictures made recently at Macedonia Brook State Park, near Kent, CT.

Also, there are still one or two spots available for my "digital platinum" workshop this weekend at The Penumbra Foundation / Center for Alternative Photography in NYC.

iPhone Platinum Print?

I have a new post up at The Online Photographer. It describes what goes on in one of my "digital platinum" workshops at The Penumbra Foundation, and a great idea one of the participants had at the most recent one.

Here's A Link to the Article.

Survived

New York, New York

Finished teaching another workshop at CAP/Penumbra, and lived to tell the tale.

Demo

At the start of the workshop this morning, before digging into the whole calibration procedure, I took this morning's picture and used it to demonstrate how the procedure works once everything is set up, using a Photoshop batch action and a print driver preset to quickly translate the adjusted monochrome file on screen into a negative on transparent media, ready for Pt/Pd printing. Then, after demonstrating the calibration steps, I decided to print that neg as first demonstration. Here it is on the drying screens along with one of the workshop participant's first print.

Sony

New York, New York

No rain this morning, but heavy overcast and some man-made atmospherics on my walkabout before breakfast this morning. Across from Madison Square Park. I'm going to use this shot to demonstrate the workup of a digital capture to make a negative for platinum printing. The point is to show how straightforward the procedure is once you have gotten your calibrations worked out. Then I'll teach the somewhat daunting process of doing those calibrations. I've found if you leap right into showing how to calibrate, people tend to go, "oh no, I'm never going to be able to do this!"

Workshop Snaps

New York, New York

A few snaps from the Digital Platinum Workshop this weekend at CAP/Penumbra. Since the digital printer we were using was an Epson P600 with a different inkset than the 3880s I've used before, the class got to really do a calibration of the negative-making system instead of simply seeing a demonstration of it. Things came under control nicely (the newer printer has more ability to block UV light, as shown by the calibration tests, and that's an advantage). Each participant ended up with a handful of nicely-done prints. We had originals from 4x5 color transparency scans, 8x10 b&w neg scans, digital captures with Leica Monochrom, Nikon D800E, and Canon dslr cameras so there was a lot to see and learn in working up the originals as inkjet output for printing in palladium.

Part of the fun was that Carol Boss at Hahnemuhle had shipped in a bunch of sample packs of their new Platinum Rag paper and everyone got to try it on Sunday.  Lovely stuff, a very welcome addition to the limited number of available papers well-suited to the process. I was so busy running between the digital darkroom and the Pt/Pd lab that I only got a chance to make some snapshots at the very end of the workshop, so not all of the participants are seen here.

Digital/Platinum Workshop

Woodbury, Connecticut

Individual workshop going on today and tomorrow. Above, a palladium print from a digital negative based on an original digital capture is draining after processing, ready for transfer to the drying screens. People and motion photograph at Grand Central Station by Alina Bliach.

Alina with a developed print in the first clearing bath. Second day we'll print more captures and make variations of a couple of them with different chemical formulas.

30th Street, 9:31 PM

New York, New York

Evening view out the ice-flecked skylight windows of the fourth floor Highlight Studio. With numerous bars and eateries on the north side of the street, it's usually very noisy on Friday nights. Last Friday, with the mercury dropping under 20°F, it was remarkably peaceful and quiet.