19 May 2006
fail-o-types
Well, the new chemistry arrived and it looks like the problem is not, in fact, the Potassium Iodide… back to the drawing board. (Damn!) My Calotype paper is still not working, darkening in the Iodide bath, making it unusable for shooting. (It turns completely black when I try to develop it.)
This was supposed to be a productive week, finally getting to all the images I’ve been thinking about for a while… Instead, I’m stumped and stymied. Now, there are so many variables involved here, it really could be any one of them that’s making the paper fail. I’ve never been much of a Methodic Scientist, but I need to figure this shit out. I’m ready to tear my hair out, if I thought it’d do anything more than make me avoid mirrors.
So I’ve mixed all new chemistry (both Silver Nitrate and the newly-arrived Potassium Iodide), I’m using a new brush and I even bought new Distilled Water. The darkroom lights are the same, the method is the same… It’s times like this I wish I were more of a proper chemist, able to analyze the reactions and so forth, but I’m not. I’ve learned only how it works, and doesn’t work. (A Behavioral Chemist?) At this point, it could still be all sorts of odd things, but it’s probably one of two: the Weather, or the Paper.
Yes, the Weather. I’ve been doing this process successfully now for Eight Years or so, and the only consistent difficulties I’ve had have been during one or two particularly hot Augusts. Now I tend to blast the Air Conditioning on any hot day I’m shooting Calotypes, just to be safe, and I usually have no problems. At any rate, it’s been a cool Spring, if a bit wet, and the first time I encountered these problems was a few weeks ago in a string of dry and mild days – perfect Calotype weather.
It’s most likely the paper. Since the chemistry sinks into the surface of the paper itself (without the typical barriers and sizings of later processes, like wax or gelatin) the paper is perhaps the most important element of calotypy. I’ve read that paper from the same manufacturer can react quite differently whether it was made in the summer or the winter…
I’ve been using the same stuff for years now, a cheap 100% rag resume paper called Classic Crest, but the new batches aren’t working at all. I should already be suspicious, since two batches of paper labeled the same are in fact quite different – one is grainier but even throughout, while I have to search through the other sheets for a clean 8×10 area free from a water mark. This is the paper I’ve used for years. I should add that I’ve had the grainier stuff – this very batch – for ages, and it’s worked before. This fact alone makes me wonder what the Hell is going on, since that, too, is not working now… could the problem be something else?
I’ve Iodized 6 sheets or so tonight, each with slight variations. The paper’s washing now. We’ll see how it goes tomorrow.
Wish me luck.
