Tombstone Print ~ OK Corral

It was sort of a shootout today, finding just how contaminated the water is in the old Barrio, old iron plumbing from a century ago, puts so much iron materials in the water and just a drop, just touch that stuff and the paper you want to lay silver solution on and dark splotches show up like a filthy disease. the negatives I took with me were ones I prepared using the Burkholder method. For whatever reason, that increased the densities at the high end making the prints almost impossible to print down. Not a problem with Dan's method. Something I overdid in the negative.

I have already revisited the negatives and reworked them my personal way of density assignment though visual inspection. Another set of negatives are ready for printing, at which time I will be able to put prints side by side with two methods of setting up the negative.

For whatever reason, the density range went wild on the negative of the stagecoach, putting the upper zones out of printable range. The print below is a Kallitype, toned in palladium. Zone 6 is barely printed in and Zone 7 & 8 aren't apparent. The adjustment I made was a small curved bulge to the curve, then tone the image green, as all other negatives.

Palladium toned Kallitype ~ "Stagecoach on Main Street"
8"x10" ~ Revere Platinum paper ~ Black developer

Palladium toned Salt Paper Print ~ "OK Corral"
8"x10" ~ Arches 140lb cream

In both prints, the upper tonal ranges were much too dense for printing in relative to the middle tones, suppressing them, as seen in the image above, with the higher tonal range, roof & store front on top, have lost all texture and detail. Next negative will be one I set up using my own method.

The Kallitype print of the Stage coach was a twenty five minute print, on a Kallitype. Very serious densities. I am having to learn to dial back on the densities way more than I had first anticipated, having had to use them before the spectral density variable came into play. I am not at all convinced the spectral color affects all density ranges equally. I believe they retard the higher opacities proportionately more than the lower tonal ranges. Still sorting that one out.

If all works out as planned there will be corrected prints to show before the week is up. Stay tuned.