The Paper Alternative

 I mentioned in a recent blog post that I regretted not getting around to making pinhole photos in a large format.  A day later my friend, Bob Eggers, showed up at my place with a finely crafted pinhole camera he built which accepts 4x5 film holders.  

Bob had loaded a couple holders with pre-flashed printing paper normally used for making enlargements in the darkroom.  Behind the pinhole he had installed a yellow-green filter for the purpose of moderating the paper's tendency to produce overly contrasty images.  So, nothing left for me to do but go out and make the shots and then see what would turn up in the darkroom.  What could be simpler?

Well, making a couple shots in Old Town went well enough, but the long time that had gone by since I was last in a darkroom sabotaged the outcome.

I set up my trays with developer and fixer,  switched on a red light, opened the film holders and popped the exposed paper sheets into the developer.  At which point I realized that I had neglected to turn off the little bathroom nightlight !  

So a couple fogged negatives as a reward for my bumbling effort.

When I got up the next day I noticed that the morning light on the historic Henry Mann house across the street was very nice.  Trial Two went off with no self-inflicted injury this time.  

 

 

I was pleased with the outcome.  The one minute exposures in the camera seemed about right.

I used HC110, dilution B, for the developing. The negatives were dark and somewhat contrasty as expected, but they scanned pretty well using my iPhone.  I put the paper negative into the film holder from my old Epson flatbed scanner to hold it flat and lit it with a table lamp.  That worked well enough, but I also decided to try backlighting the negatives and did that by placing the holder on top of my large LED panel. 

The backlit image may be a tiny bit sharper, but I really saw very little difference from the overhead lamp light.

This was actually my second time for shooting on paper.  The first was about three years ago, also with Bob's considerable assistance.  That endeavor seemed a lot easier as I was using a No.3A Folding Pocket Kodak with an actual lens, a Rapid Rectilinear, which permitted an exposure of just two seconds at f/16.

I may not do much more with paper negatives, but this experience has been fun, and I certainly recommend giving it a try if you are looking for something out of the ordinary in your photographic journey.