Re: re: paper negative

----- Original Message -----
From: "James"
< you might take a took at this url, the history and how to of paper
> negatives, including info on william mortenson's special techniques:
> http://www.photography.about.com/library/weekly/aa051302a.htm
> James Luckett

James,

Many thanks for this very interesting reference. Somehow, my Google
search on the topic of Paper negatives did not pick it up.

For those who want to get a copy of Mortensen's book "The paper
negative", be prepared to pay anywhere between $500 to close to $700 if
you find one. It is a very rare out-of-print book. Don't even think of
turning to eBay for a copy! I've tried to get one for a long time and
there ain't any...!

As regards the practice of wetting the paper (positive and negative) and
squeegee the two sheets together, the essence is to be brisk, in order
not to let the chemistry on top of the positive to become active and
interfere with the exposure and the processing. This has been our
greatest difficulty with printing the giant pinhole negative created on
April 28.

What we will be doing is to pre-wash the positive for 10-15 minutes (in
the dark, since the darkroom light will fog the paper if it remains
under that light for so long) and to proceed with squeegeeing this
pre-washed positive with the negative as per the usual procedure. We
also will need to be extremely careful to not let any pounds of water on
top of the print or in between the positive and the negative, to avoid
maks on the final print.

All this is quite easy when you work with 11x14 or 16x20 format. It
get's a real challenge when you deal with three strips of paper positive
and negative that are 50'' x 8 feet... To my knowledge, nobody has been
doing that before.

We'll find out this weekend if this can be done successfully...!

Best,

Guy
Received on Wed Jun 26 07:53:20 2002