Saturday, June 27, 2015

Blogging for the Baron: Slipped Discs and Salty Duds

Hi there, Spiders. I wish I didn't have a good excuse for missing this week's Thursday update, but I do. Somehow I managed to slip a disc in my lower spine while getting out of my friend's SUV. Normal, every day activity and my spine just decided that it wasn't up to it. So I spent Thursday night and Friday morning in increasing amounts of pain. Then I went to the doctor (thanks Obama!!) and found that instead of a pulled muscle, a particularly persistent cramp or anything else reasonable.. I had torn a disc in my spine and some of the jelly inside had leaked out and was messing everything up. That's not terrifying at all.

So now I have an absolute bucket full of drugs to take. Anti-inflammatories, muscle relaxants, steroids, two types of high-powered painkillers. It's pretty lame, actually. At least so far nothing actually knocks me right out... but then I haven't tried the Valium yet. Today, thankfully, was an improvement. If I'm sitting, standing, or walking... I'm mostly fine. It's just when I try to lean over, or move between positions that my back reminds me that it is most certainly not fine.

My students coating papers
Despite all that mess, I did manage to get to my workshop today. Photogenic Drawing at the Light Factory! I had six students, which was a great number. We covered chlorophyll printing, cyanotypes and lumen prints in detail. We briefly went over the theory of anthotypes, but didn't have time to make an exposure since they take several days. I had planned to include salt prints, and I sorta did... but the paper I used wasn't the right kind of cheap watercolor paper. The silver nitrate solution soaked right into the paper, leaving a blotchy, streaky mess. None of the prints came out, not even a little. It really sucked. But the other three-and-a-half processes were a big hit!

There was another, smaller issue with the cyanotypes. I've been using very old and brown ferric ammonium citrate for months now. I got a large jug of it when the Light Factory moved from their old location to their new one, and I never turn down free photo chemistry! Since getting it, I've mostly been using it for parchment prints, where color and detail get a bit muddled anyway. Originally, though, I did some tests to be sure the brown ferric ammonium citrate would work. It seemed to work fine on those tests, some months ago. I can't find them now, but I distinctly recall doing them....

Left: Green FAC.     Right: Brown FAC.
Anyway, today when we printed with the brown ferric ammonium citrate, all our cyanotypes came out with a strong sepia tinge to the highlights and with duller, more greyish-green blues. They basically look warm-tone or very "antiqued." Almost what you might expect from a tea toning. It's quite odd, but not unattractive. They still had full detail, highlights and shadows. 

Later in the class, I mixed up some green ferric ammonium citrate and the prints from that came out great. Pure whites, navy blues, all normal results. So it does appear that either the brown ferric ammonium citrate has always produced those warm tones, or something has happened to it in the last several months. I'm not sure which.

At least I know about it now, and I can take advantage of the difference. The warm-tone cyanotypes are quite pretty, so I'll be trying those out with some negatives. I might even have to start making new negatives! It even worked out really nicely with just photograms. The yarrow photograms pictured above came out great on the warm chemistry. I really love the look of yarrow sprigs, too. I'm going to have to see if I can get ahold of some myself. The yarrow my student had started wilting pretty fast in the heat, and by the time I got it home, it had curled up on itself. Big bummer. I'm going to try putting it in water and coaxing it back to life!

My students today had great success using digital transparency positives for chlorophyll printing. One of them brought in some historical photographs of faces and some scanned nature etchings from old books. They printed really well! I'm going to have to consider what kind of images I might work with, since I haven't been shooting a lot of actual photographs over the past several years. Still, it's pretty cool stuff. 

Overall, today was very productive. I had a great time, and I'm feeling really inspired to start some new experiments. I hope my students from the workshop feel the same way!

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