Fit and Toned

My darkroom techniques project at college has been quite a fun experience for me and has led to me doing a lot of stuff i didn't expect to be doing.

I am still in favour of digital technology but the darkroom work has been an eye-opening opportunity.

One of the parts of the project is the use of toning techniques, i've decided to scan and psot some samples of the test work I have been doing.

These are the initial tests using an images printed onto some ADOX fine print vario contrast fibre based paper. The sample to the top left of this post is toned in Tea (Nambarrie to be precise) at the rate of 4 tea-bags to 1 litre of water. I boiled the kettle then used a pan with the tea bags in it and reboiled the water wiith the tea bags stirring occasionally, i then left it to cool for 3 minutes before squeezing the tea bags and removing them, the liquid was then poured into a plastic container and the print left to absorb the tea for 4 minutes before being left overnight to dry.

I know there's a lot of debate over the archive quality but i do think it has a certain something about it.

The samples below are (from left to right) - Weak Selenium (1:19 solution), strong selenium (1:3 solution), medium Sepia and lastly a completely untoned image.