Blogging for Thor: The Life and Times of Salt

Sensitized salt paper
24 hours after coating

I have discovered a flaw in my approach to salt printing. Time. I was assuming that as long as the salt print was kept in a dry, dark location, it wouldn't expose quickly. I could coat a decent sized batch of sheets one night and then wait for good weather to use them.

Wrong.

Even waiting a full day after applying the silver nitrate was too long. I opened the door of the cabinet where I was storing the paper and found this.

Print on fogged salt paper

All five coated sheets looked the same. I tried printing them anyway and both images made with negatives are so distorted that they're basically invisible. I did get a passable, in fact quite interesting, result from a contact print of a Mexican Heather sprig. The spotting and patterning becomes even more visible during the exposure. And for some reason, despite using kosher salt, these prints came out deep violet splotched with black and pink. Not at all the reds and browns I was expecting.

So, from now on, I'll have to dry the silver-coated paper fairly quickly and try to use it the same day. Or at least coat during the evening (as I do now) and use it the very next morning. I might even try using a hairdryer to accelerate the process so I can coat and print within an hour or two. It's just a bit of a bummer that I can't store the paper. Anthotype paper keeps basically forever if it's out of sunlight. Cyanotype paper keeps for a few days before it begins to fog too much. Salt prints, though, just won't keep for more than a few hours. Bummer.

Lesson learned, y'all!