I had tried this experiment previously with Pyrocat HD and wanted to see its effect with Pyrocat M. I had seen a post about an olive toner using cachetol in a bleach + redevelop process. The toner is known as IT8. I decided to use dilute Pyrocat M in place of the cachetol toner to […]

Initially I Iiked the cold tones of the original print, but I was doing some toning and thought why not try it with this one. It has strong blacks that I wanted to preserve as dark tones so my experiment was to determine if Selenium + Thiourea would give me the desired effect. After a […]

Not only rivers and waterfalls capture my attention, but stumps and fallen trees seem to be a recurring theme.  On one of my Sunday Morning Adventures to Amicalola I took the opposite path from Edge of the World to check on a fishing spot after a heavy rain. I noticed this huge stump was beached […]

In celebration of photography day I went into the darkroom to catch up on some printing. But of course had to try something new. First I mixed my Photographers Fomulary 130 paper developer a little more dilute to see if it made any difference in tone of my normal paper. I mixed it 1:2 instead […]

I returned a second time to high shoals falls area to shoot with fellow NGLFP member Bryan G. The hike was about the same but not as hot as the first time I visited. We both shot for about 3 hours before the sun became too bright to work any longer.  Here are the images […]

Here is the final print version of Amicalola Creek. My initial version was a scan of the negative and processed in Photoshop to my normal brown tone. However after printing this image I thought I liked it better more neutral grey. But I did decide to warm it up a bit so did a little […]

My Dichro 45s enlarger head died a few months back so I was using a cold light head in its place. I had to use under the lens graded filters since there was no control for the color of light when using multigrade papers. I then found on ebay, for a somewhat reasonable price, a […]

Yesterday I decided to try Photographers Formulary 130 Paper developer which is same or very similar to Ansco 130 developer. The developer is supposed to provide rich blacks with high contrast if used straight, or can be diluted 1:2 for a softer working solution. PF recommends 1:1 for best overall results. There are 6 ingredients […]

In a previous article, http://www.searing.photography/testing-lpd-vs-pf106/ I explored the differences of two paper developers on 3 different papers and found there was little difference in the tonality based on developer.  There were differences in exposure time required to achieve max black  and some differences in shadow detail but I can not attribute all of that to […]

Since I use mostly Ilford multi-grade papers I decided to try out the Ilford Multigrade developer. It is similar in chemical make up to LPD, being a Hydroquinone + EDTA acid, so I did not expect much difference. The developer comes as a liquid concentrate and is mixed 1:9 or 1:14. Working solution should last […]