Technical Pan photo

Technical pan film by Kodak is a very high contrast, high resolution film that has been discontinued. The photo of Anthony’s Pier Restaurant in Portland, Maine, is an example taken with a 35mm Nikon; I’m guessing at 1/60 sec, f16, no filter. If you click to enlarge the image, even the people that originally appeared as specks are still in reasonable focus. The clouds are very contrasty, as if a red 25 filter had been used.

Photojewelry

B/W photograph of two swallows on fused glass, with sterling silver bezel. The glass is a lens that I have fully fused into a 1.25 inch diameter piece, with the photo being printed on the back. Since all the glass pieces are the same diameter, I can prepare many sterling silver bezels of exactly the same size. The image above appears colored; this is due to ambient light being reflected from a piece of transparent dichroic film sandwiched between the photo and the back of the bezel. This film diffracts light at various wavelengths, depending on the viewing angle. Thus the print may appear bluish, yellow, or orange from different angles.

Ruby’s Place

“Ruby’s Place” is a black and white photograph of a window in an elderly Maine woman’s house. The weathered shingled siding is across from a small town cemetery—as can be seen in the reflection in the glass-and you are possibly wondering what the occupant of the house thinks as she looks out her window.

Technically I used a Mamiya 645, Kodak PX 125 film, shot at f8/125 sec.

Printing Photos onto 3D Glass

Silver gelatin printing doesn’t have to be onto paper- this is of course the easiest choice, because papers are readily available from Kodak, Ilford, Bergger, etc. In this article I will explain how I print onto glass, which is one of my favorite surfaces.

Figure 1

The glass can be anything from window panes to costly hand blown Steuben, but in this example I have used a pyramid-shaped piece of cast glass I have made, measuring about 5” high and 4” wide [Figures 1,2]. I will explain how the glass is poured and finished another time.

I first clean the glass, coat with gelatin, and then in the dark room set the glass on supports so that the surface to be printed onto is horizontally aligned with the enlarger negative. [Note that you will need to determine the proper exposure settings first, and for this I generally use a piece of window glass coated with emulsion and positioned the same distance from the enlarger lens as the glass.] For this particular piece, I have made a V-shaped cardboard cutout to support the glass so that the entire surface is the same distance from the negative. The print is then made and hand-carried through developer, fixer, and water, followed finally by archival toning with selenium. I find that selenium toning gives the print a warm tone. (These are standard dark room techniques that can be found in many published books and magazines.)

Figure 2

Fig. 1 shows a front view of “America’s Cup challanger Oracle, Trapani, 2005”. In my opinion, the photograph can only be viewed from the front- rotating the glass so that the print is seen through the glass [Fig. 2] results in a double image! This actually brings up the most interesting aspect of printing onto glass; namely the distortion that glass gives to the photo. I prefer to have the image viewed through the glass, and this opens up the placement of the image- the glass can be sliced horizontally, or at a 45 degree angle, and the photo printed followed by reassembly of the glass.

Another challenge, and perhaps the most important, is to print the right kind of photograph on the right shape of glass. In Fig. 1, I believe that the tall 12 meter yacht belongs nicely on the triangle. On the other hand, a complex landscape picture, or even a Maine lighthouse photo, would seem out of place. In other words, the viewer does not want to have the glass piece overpower the photo.

Printing on Other Surfaces – Clamshells

Black and white photographs can be printed onto almost any surface- not just paper.
Generally, the process involves painting a special silver gelatin emulsion onto the
surface, in the dark room. The surface is exposed to film, taken through developer
and fixer, and dried.

Here’s a description of how I created the photos that were printed onto
clamshells:

1. Clean the shell first with water/soap, then with bleach in order to whiten the
   surface.
2. Coat the surface with gelatin [1 package plus 1 1/2 cups water, dissolved]. Drain and dry.
3. In the dark room, warm and solubilize the silver gelatin- I use MACO variable
   contrast [Photographer's Formulary].
4. Paint the liquid on the shell, in one direction. Stand upright. Air dry or
   carefully blow dry.
5. Repeat [4] but paint at right angles. Stand, dry, and store in light tight bag [I
   use old print paper bags].
6. Expose to film in enlarger. Note that a shell of similar size but not treated
   should be used to guage the correct enlarger settings. Usually I run a “test shell”
   with different exposure times in order to get the correct exposure.
7. Carry through developer [Dektol], 2 fixer baths, and water. Dry thoroughly.
8. Spray with clear Krylon acrylic spray [obtained at any hardware store], dry.

Enjoy your finished clam shell, and feel free to ask me any questions about this technique. I hope you find it useful.