New from Old, bringing in the new year with some 'Old School' goodness

Tonkinese infantrymen with French officer. Photographer unknown. Tea toned Cyanotype print.

About a month ago whilst scouring eBay for bits and pieces for my other interest, military badges relating to the French colonies in Indochina, I stumbled across these old glass-plate negatives taken in Tonkin (North Vietnam) towards the end of the 19th Century. ... And as old/alternative processes are my thing, it was just something that I just had to have, the plan being to produce some prints and muck around with hand coloring. 

Some of the glass plate negatives and their box as I found them on eBay

Anyway, they arrived a fortnight ago and I haven't really had much time to do anything with them yet, but last night, whilst everybody was seeing in the new year, I decided to mix up some Cyanotype chemistry and knock out a few test prints this morning. 

This was never meant to be a serious print making session so after contact printing I decided to tone the Cyanotypes, using a few teabags and then just hang them on the washing line to dry

Portrait of a Tonkinese gentleman. Photographer unknown. Tea toned Cyanotype. 

French Colonial officer. Photographer unknown. Tea toned Cyanotype.

Generally the negatives, which measure 12 x 17cm are in reasonably good condition although a couple lack some density in the shadow areas due to underexposure but overall, quite 'printable'. It's been stinking hot here in Perth over the past week or so and the UV levels are high, so a 'quick' 15 minute exposure under the sun, wash under running water and voila, my first prints for 2013... using negatives over a hundred years old a process developed in 1856, the sun, tea and running water. Yep, I'm a Luddite.

Diginegs... from phone pic to B&W darkroom print

Screen-grab from my LR catalog showing a photo taken with my Nokia N95 mobile/cell phone. (Click on picture to see a larger version)

Those of you that know me, know how much I love being in the darkroom and printing traditional silver gelatin based prints. When I travel these days one of the big decisions that I have to make is to determine how much of my film based analog gear Vs my digital cameras I should take. There's just not enough room for all or both. 

During my trip to Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam, with Perth photographer and party animal,  Robert (Safaribob) McLellan, in late 2009 I opted just to take a couple of 35mm  cameras (my beloved Hasselblad X-pan and my little Leica P&S) leaving all my digital kit back home. EXCEPT for my trusty old and much loved Nokia N95 cellphone. Ended up using the camera on the phone quite a lot, albeit mainly when Bob and I were staggering around in search of beer or food... which is what we seemed to be doing mostly

Quite liked some of the pix, so I decided to produce some inkjet based digital negatives and see how they printed in the darkroom. I've been making digital negatives for some time now, although mostly to use as contact negs when producing Canotypes, Van Dyke and other alternative processes. I'd also just bought a 'low end' Canon MG5250 printer and was curious to see how it would compare to my older Epson. 

So, after doing some preliminary prepping of the phone pic in lightroom, I moved it over to photoshop and ran some tests, tweak ing the curves to match the silver gelatin process, with my printer and the inkjet material that I am using. Most practitioners of this technique, including one of the guru's, Dan Burkholder, recommend the Pictorico OHP sheets but as I am struggling to get these atm, I opted for Nobo OHP film available from Officeworks. The quality of the resulting negatives and Fibre Based prints (Kentmere Fineprint VC FB paper) are pretty bloody good considering the printer and Nobo OHP film don't even register on the 'radar' as being worthy of consideration for the majority of the practitioners of this technique.

Shop Window, Old Quarter, Hanoi - Silver Gelatin Artists proof print
(Click on picture to see a larger version)

Bui Vien before breakfast

(Click on the images to see a larger view.)

Bui Vien, 0645 am - Silver Gelatin print, edition of 10

Bui Vien, 0700 am - Silver Gelatin print, edition of 10

 Bui Vien, 0715 am - Silver Gelatin print, edition of 10

 Bui Vien, Cyclo mistah? - Silver Gelatin print, edition of 10

 Bui Vien, Cyclos - Silver Gelatin print, edition of 10

 Bui Vien, Cylco driver - Silver Gelatin print, edition of 10

Got up early(ish) one morning whilst staying at Madam Cuc 64 guesthouse on Bui Vien in Ho Chi Minh City to take some snaps with the xpan before breakfast. 

The street (Bui Vien) is in the heart of the 'backpacker' precinct of Pham Ngu Lao, but apart from the travellers preparing to head off to their next location, most of the tourists seemed to be still sleeping off the party from the night before. But the roads were hardly deserted as breakfasts were being prepared, whilst the ubiquitous Xe Om (motorbike taxis) and cyclos started to ferry their human cargo around District 1.