More lines and shadows on lith

The other day you might have seen this same shot, of the stone steps leading up from the small beach by the Portrush Arcadia where Missy does her Pilates on a Monday evening.  The same Portrush Arcadia where I saw manys a band back in the day.  A few years ago the concert hall at the back of the building was demolished, but they kept the front, which was most surprising for this part of the world where preservation of old buildings would appear to be the exception, not the norm.  So, we have to be grateful for small mercies, don't we.

Anyway, here's another print from the same 6x6 negative.  Slightly closer crop, but still Foma paper in Moersch lith developer although this time two stops over-exposed under the enlarger, which as we all know means less contrasty...but a whole lot more colourful:

Untoned, in case you were wondering - the colour is solely due to the action of the lith developer on this particular paper.

Rocks in the sea

Just off the seaside town of Portrush lie a group of rocks in the sea (just visible on the horizon in the print below).  The Skerries.  A bit of research the other year indicates the name is derived from an old Norse work, meaning 'rock' or 'rock in the sea'.  Appropriate enough, it would appear.

Portrush, HP5 on the Hasselblad, Foma paper, lith

It was part of the lith printing session the other day - the usual 9.5"x12" Foma paper and some oldish Easylith developer.  I haven't played around that much with different lith formulae but when my solutions of Moersch Easylith are finished I've got some Fotospeed to try.  Usually I mix 20ml of solution A with 20ml of B and about a litre of water but you can vary the concentration of both A and B to have softer/harder tones or lower/higher contrast. 

This print ended up being particularly colourful, as you can see - appropriate enough as it was taken in the early evening in warm summer sunlight.  I'm thinking it might be worth dunking the print into some weak ferrycyanide bleach to lift the highlights a bit - but on the other hand I might just leave it alone.  Sometimes I find it pays to leave a print lying around for a while and eventually it either grows on me or I decide to do something different with it (before putting it on the wall, in a box or throwing it in the bin).

The one useful thing I do nowadays is put the negative number on the back of every print so it's easy enough to find it should I ever want to print it again. 

Just some lines and stuff

Another lith print from the walkabout in Portrush.  Early evening sun casting interesting shadows on the steps:

HP5 on the 'Blad, Foma paper, lith developer

Cloudscape

We get an amazing array of cloud formations in this part of the world - not surprisingly, given the amount of precipitation we get.  Keeps Ireland green, I guess :)

Anyway, the other evening I was out in Portrush for a wee dander while Missy was at her Pilates Class.  It's pretty hard-core, otherwise I might have been tempted myself...but instead I wandered about the place, Hasselblad in hand.  Taking the air, as they say around these parts.

It was a lovely evening, peaceful and warm(ish).  The clouds caught my eye:

I stuck a deep red filter on the 50mm lens and pointed the camera skywards.  I'm in a lith mode at the minute, so out came the Foma paper and some by-now-pretty-old Moersch Easylith developer and away we went.  I think I made a mistake by trying to be too clever, though, since at first the clouds came out with a beautiful warm pinky tinge to them.  For some unknown reason I decided it wasn't enough so I dunked it into some cupric sulphate bleach and tried to sepia it.  All that happened, of course, was I lost the original pink colour.  On the plus side I think it accentuated the white of the clouds a little, so it wasn't a complete disaster.

I can feel a 'cloud' project coming on...

Glasgow glass, lith

You may recall we were in Glasgow a while back - something to do with Sam Smith, I seem to remember.  Anyway, we caught the 'Flyer' bus from the City Centre back to the Airport and I bagged myself a window seat, Nikon in hand ready for anything that caught my eye.  I snapped up this building with its reflective glass windows as we waited at traffic lights - through the none-too-clean coach window, I should add:

Glasgow building, lith print, 2018

I was keeping it for a lith day and that day was today.  It's not easy to convince oneself to get into the darkroom at the minute, for the weather in The Liberties is rather pleasant (for this part of the world, that means mid '70s - phew!) and little wind so it actually feels warm. But, in spite of that, sometimes you have to scratch the itch and so I had a very quick darkroom session early this morning.  Foma 131 paper and old-ish, warm-ish Moersch Easylith, followed by a short dunk in warm selenium 1:5 which just deepened the blacks without any significant colour shift.  A quick test print, for which I opened up the enlarger lens by 3 stops, as lith needs over-exposure at this stage.  Contrast was a bit low on the test print so I stopped down 1 and it all seemed to work out OK.

Still here

Not gone away just yet.  Been getting a print ready for submission to the Northern Ireland Photographic Association's annual exhibition.  NIPA is the overarching organisation of all the photographic clubs in Northern Ireland and the club I joined last year, the Ballymoney Club, is part of it.  Each year NIPA takes an exhibition of selected images on the road up and down the country - I think they get an external judge, or judges, in to do the selection.  Anyway, last year I saw their exhibition when it came to Portstewart and I thought this year I'd try to get something in.  I was aiming for a couple of prints but in the end events overtook me and I've had to settle for this one - here's a phone shot of it, all mounted and everything:

Lifeguard Station, Portstewart Strand

It looks all lith and everything but it's not really.  It's a normal print on Ilford Warmtone although I did bleach it back in cupric sulphate and then dunk it into some fairly warm lith developer.  But it went a bit dark and horrible so I abandoned that and after another wash bleached it again and then toned it in some old sepia.  I was pretty happy with the end result - some dark bits and some light bits and some bits inbetween.

This was a 12"x16" print and truth be told it's the largest I've printed for a very long time.  Everything changes when you wind the enlarger up the column a good bit - times are longer of course and things behave differently to that little 10"x8" print that came out so easily by comparison.

So it's going off to the NIPA selector(s) and we'll see what gives.  Most of the prints in last year's exhibition seemed to be studio portraits.  There are a couple of 'big hitters' in one of the Belfast Clubs and they seem to have a bit of a monopoly on the whole NIPA thing.  Not my thing, really but there you go.

Down the Port

A couple of weeks ago we went 'down the Port' for a dander.  Portstewart, that is.  It was a bright afternoon/evening and although I had the 'Blad with me I wasn't confident.  But when you get both exposure and development half right there's a fair bit of detail captured in an HP5+ negative and that, my friends, gives one plenty of scope to play around in the darkroom.  This was the result after a few test prints, on Warmtone RC paper:

Portstewart Bay, HP5+, Ilford Warmtone RC paper