tintype

This is the latest in my Holga camera tintype series.

Holga Tintype

In working on my Holga tintype series, I had a couple extra tins left over from my first batch, and I wanted to try some double exposures.   What is printed on the tintype is not the same thing I see in the viewfinder.  The distances are different between the two as the viewfinder on these camera are off to a side and you're not seeing what's being shot.  So as I take more images, I will be better able to estimate where I want to place different items and get exactly what I want in the shot.

I'm also experimenting with shooting urbanscapes and different themes.  It's an interesting process to me to see what works and what doesn't.

 Holga tintype.

So my Southern California weather is not cooperating with my project!  The last several months the weather here has been great:  sunny skies with little cloud interference.  Now that I'm starting to work on this series, our "June gloom" is setting in.  In June we end up with a marine layer setting in most of the day, which leaves our days mostly overcast.  This does not work well with my tintype project.

I find with the emulsion I'm using to coat my tins, the emulsion has been estimated at approximately ISO 50, which means it has a very low sensitivity to light and needs more light in order to expose an image correctly.  I have to set my Holga to "B," which stands for "bulb," meaning that the shutter will stay open as long as I have the shutter release button depressed.  Any faster shutter speed doesn't allow enough light into the camera to expose the tin.  So my images also have to be taken while the camera is secured on a tripod to minimize movement.

So when I go to shoot any image -- landscape/portrait/whatever -- I have to estimate the amount of time I hold the shutter release button down.  Too little time and the image turns out way underexposed; too much time and the image ends up way too light.  This actually is the reverse from regular photography because of the nature of the emulsion.

But this is all new territory for me, and I'm enjoying the trial-and-error process that is necessary in order to make this work.

Holga tintype series.

One of the interesting things I find about this tintype business is that all your images are reversed so that if you have some writing in the photo, it will appear backwards.  This is true of all the images; so when I look at a street scene I shot, everything is in reverse.

I'm trying this project out on people as well.  Because of the low ISO of the emulsion (how sensitive it is to light), I have to keep the shutter open longer than is normally possible for a crisp, focused image.  It's hard not to shake a bit, or the subject will move just a little.  But with this first portrait attempt, I'm realizing what I need to do to make it a stronger image:  first is to put the camera back on the tripod, and second I need to expose the image just a little longer.  When this tintype process, the longer the plate is exposed to light, the lighter the image becomes, which is completely reversed from normal darkroom work.

But I'm liking the ethereal quality of the image as a first try.  I will be working with more people, I can tell.

I've been able to slowly start working on my Holga tintype series.  Right now it's an arduous process.  The unexposed tins have to be loaded into the camera in a light-sealed condition.  Since I don't have a changing bag in order to change tins inside my camera on location,  I have to load the camera at home in my darkroom, go to the location, shoot, come back home and develop the exposed tin.  Then I can load up the camera again and repeat the process.

In addition, I recently took a nasty bump to my head and received a mild concussion -- just enough for my doctor to order me not to drive until the next appointment when I will be hopefully cleared.  So this makes me subject to the kindness of strangers for transportation to sites.

Now that I am seeing how this process works, and the results I am able to achieve, I will be working more on the artistic, poetic quality of the images.

More to come.

I've been searching for a photographic project to do just for the sheer enjoyment of doing it.  I've always been interested in experimental photography, and one process I've really gotten a lot of pleasure pursuing is tintype, which is the method of photography done back in the 1800's where photographs were exposed and printed on sheets of metal.  I do use an alternative emulsion as the original chemicals are extremely toxic and almost impossible to transport from place to place.  Using my method, I can coat any number of tins that I want, let them dry, put them in a box away from the light and go on my travels.  I change my plates in a changing bag, which allows me to change these plates without any damage from light.  When I get home, then I can develop all the tins that I have shot.

The part of this that is intriguing to me is that the camera I am using to shoot my images is a Holga plastic camera.  Holgas are extremely cheap and have become very popular in an alternative, pop-culture kind of way.  This means that the images I take are processed on a piece of tin that is 2 inches by 2 inches.  These images attached to this post are originally 2x2, so they appear much larger on screen than the size of the original tin.  At first I thought the images were ok; however, closer examination with a magnifying glass revealed a clarity of these images that I did not think was possible for an image so small.  The scanned images so far don't do justice to the original plates; maybe as I go along I'll be able to produce better scans in order to post how much detail is actually in these photos.

I've come up with the term "micro-photography" or "miniature photography."  There's a whole microcosm hiding on each plate.

I was inspired to start this project after viewing YouTube videos about this young photographer who has been doing some extremely interesting (at least to me) tintype photography.  His work has included sizes from 2"x2" up to 4'x5', and his camera is the back of a large truck.  His name is Ian Ruhter, a name I urge anyone who is interested in photography to look up.

Now that I know this process actually does work, I'm ready to take it out into the world and explore different ways that I can make this work.  More will be coming.

Lumen Prints.

One form of alternative photographic process is called the lumen print.  This consists of taking a sheet of regular black&white photographic paper out of its light-sealed envelope, placing it in direct sunlight, placing different vegetation on top of the paper and letting it "cook" for a couple hours with a quick fix at the end.  I love the images that can be made using this method, but it goes against everything I was taught in my b&w class about never exposing your paper to light.  I still cringe whenever I bring new sheets out.

While experimenting with this technique, I thought about how to combine this with photographic imagery.  I printed out digital negatives of an image on transparency paper and then placed that transparency on top of the plant material and let it sit.  The almost ghostly qualities of the final prints make me want to explore this whole art form further.  The nice part is it only takes a few minutes (once you've printed your transparencies) to do your setup and then walk away for a couple hours to let it process.  This gives me plenty of time to work on other ideas.

Photogram.  This combined image is made up of four 16x20 sheets of regular black/white paper.  The paper is normally never to be taken out in the light; but in this case, I took the paper out of the container and put it directly into the sunlight.  Then I took freshly cut plant leaves, palm fronds and other material on top of the paper which was laid out in the square as viewed.  I also took a large digital negative of my head and hand and laid them on top of the paper also.  Then I layered large pieces of glass on top of everything to keep things from blowing away.  The exposure was 45 minutes in the sun.  Then I put the paper directly into a fixer, then washed and let it dry.