Lumen Print 667 Botanical 18July2010 by John Fobes
Lumen Print 667 Botanical. Ilford MG RC 9x10 Warm Tone paper before fixing with sodium thiosulfate.
This print presented me with a difficult but common problem. Moisture from the leaf quickly started to condense on the underside of the cover glass and sizable pool of moisture droped to the print surface. This moisture evaporated quickly and drew the paper surfae and the underside of the glass into contact. I knew that this could the paper emulsion when seperated,however, the print still needed at least one more hour exposure. The other option was to take the print indoors and dry off the moisture on the print and carefully reregister the leaf on the print surface for a return of the remaining one hour exposure. This technique has been sucessful in the past lumen printing exoerience. However the print had already dried to the underside of the glass. An emergency salvage was my only remaining option. I soaked the print in a tray of warm water in the dark room with only the safelight on. The print finally seperated after soaking for two and a half hours. This print was clearly under exposed with large white areas. I tried to reregister the leaf on the print surface, but this was not possible because the leaf `had dried out and shrank a considerable amount while I was working with the paper and glass seperation. An experimemtal long shot was my llast option. I placed the print in a dry over sized tray and exposed the print to raw sunlight. After about ten seconds I could see the white areas turning to pink,orange, and suttle shades of blue. I let the print continue to expose for a total of fourty seconds and quickly moved indoors. I was pleasently surprised with the filled in detail. This was true solarization and a suttle reversal of positive/negative tones did take place. I like this serindipitous discovery and I will not hesitate to use it when necessary.
Lumen Print 667 Botanical 18July2010 by John Fobes
Lumen Print 667 Botanical. Ilford MG RC 9x10 Warm Tone paper before fixing with sodium thiosulfate.
This print presented me with a difficult but common problem. Moisture from the leaf quickly started to condense on the underside of the cover glass and sizable pool of moisture droped to the print surface. This moisture evaporated quickly and drew the paper surfae and the underside of the glass into contact. I knew that this could the paper emulsion when seperated,however, the print still needed at least one more hour exposure. The other option was to take the print indoors and dry off the moisture on the print and carefully reregister the leaf on the print surface for a return of the remaining one hour exposure. This technique has been sucessful in the past lumen printing exoerience. However the print had already dried to the underside of the glass. An emergency salvage was my only remaining option. I soaked the print in a tray of warm water in the dark room with only the safelight on. The print finally seperated after soaking for two and a half hours. This print was clearly under exposed with large white areas. I tried to reregister the leaf on the print surface, but this was not possible because the leaf `had dried out and shrank a considerable amount while I was working with the paper and glass seperation. An experimemtal long shot was my llast option. I placed the print in a dry over sized tray and exposed the print to raw sunlight. After about ten seconds I could see the white areas turning to pink,orange, and suttle shades of blue. I let the print continue to expose for a total of fourty seconds and quickly moved indoors. I was pleasently surprised with the filled in detail. This was true solarization and a suttle reversal of positive/negative tones did take place. I like this serindipitous discovery and I will not hesitate to use it when necessary.