toning – Camera Obscura

Innocent X, by David Paul Lyon

David Paul Lyon — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 08:52:23 +0000

Text and photographies by David Paul Lyon.

Perhaps the most formative experience of my life, surpassed only by the birth of my son transpired at the impressionable age of fifteen while on a family visit to the Des Moines Art Center in Des Moines Iowa. It had been a rainy Saturday when my parents, sister and I had piled in the car and traveled into the city to take a look at the current exhibition of work by Chuck Close.

Neither of my parents had a significant interest in the arts. My fatherʼs interests mostly revolved around outdoor activities like hunting and fishing and my mother spent her free time either garage sale hunting or shopping at the local mall. In hindsight it is clear to me that the visit revolved around the passionate interest that I had shown in art for the previous couple of years. Even at that early age I was committed to following a career as an artist. At that point however I was, as one can imagine still directionless and in the exploratory stages of even settling on a medium.

After having taken a diligent look at the temporary exhibition of work by Chuck Close of which I had been duly impressed we entered the gallery of the permanent collection. Back behind the display of Jeff Koonsʼ “Hoover Vacuum Cleaner Double Decker” I saw the painting that for me changed everything. Francis Baconʼs “Study after Velazquezʼs Portrait of Pope Innocent X” hung in what I felt was a forgotten corner of the gallery. What I saw and felt in that moment was for me an epiphany.

Francis Bacon – Pope Innocent X
Please visit Innocent X, by David Paul Lyon for the full size image.

Until that point, despite my passionate interest in art I had seen nothing more transformative than what was embodied in that work. The haunting ghost-like image of a screaming pope painted on an untreated canvas with obscuring streaks of paint stopped me dead in my tracks. Iʼm not sure how long I stood before that painting, but for me it felt as if time had stopped.

Velasquez – Innocent X
Please visit Innocent X, by David Paul Lyon for the full size image.

The title of the piece was as well for me deliciously blasphemous. “Pope Innocent” struck me as the perfect left jab to the gut of the Vatican. Only years later did I find out that Diego Velezquez original painting was of the actual Pope Innocent X. The original portrait by Velezquez that the study by Bacon is of, now strikes me as even more sinister than the painting by Bacon. Pope Innocent X, painted by Velezquez, sneering from his papal throne in what was likely a more flattering portrait than how he actually looked is a chilling work of art. The irony of the title of Francis Bacon’s painting however, was not lost on me. This was still a couple of decades before the Catholic Church sex scandal emerged, but even at this young age and despite having the good fortune not to have been abused in any way by a member of the clergy, I nonetheless knew that something with the Catholic Church was amiss.

To my fatherʼs dismay, at the age of about thirteen years old, two full years earlier, I vocally raised my doubts about the validity of the Catholic Church and Christianity as a whole. The hypocritical position the church as well as itʼs members took on exclusion based on a persons prior experiences, sexual orientation or cultural background as well as the church members own hypocritical actions outside of that brief moment when Mass was being held, struck me as a complete dismissal of the human values Jesus Christ taught nearly every time the Scripture was cited.

In the attempt to get me to change my mind my parents sought the help of the Monsignor who oversaw our parish. Monsignor Schwarte was an extremely intelligent and well traveled man who had been a missionary in Africa for several years whom I respected immensely. Through our discussions about his travels and experiences, myself citing the inevitable fact that there are so many people from so many different cultures around the globe, that to have all of them to subscribe to Christianity is a futile effort and the churches position that those who follow any other doctrine are doomed to eternal damnation was a direct contradiction to what I felt a humane and just God would allow. Over the course of several weeks and many extensive discussions with Monsignor Schwarte and contrary to what my parents had hoped for, my position against the church as well as exceptionalism of any kind at this time became permanently galvanized.

Soon after having seen “Study after Velazquezʼs Portrait of Pope Innocent X”, since these were still the days before the internet became a part of our daily lives, I attempted to research the work of Francis Bacon in both our school and public library but yielded no results. Many years later when I was in my early twenties I chanced upon an exhibition of his work at the MOMA on a visit to New York City. Besides being struck by the consistent intensity of his paintings what surprised me the most was what the artist said regarding that series of pope paintings which was that it was “an excuse to use these colors, and you canʼt give ordinary clothes that purple color without getting into a sort of false fauve manner.” Francis Bacon, who also surprisingly resembled Mickey Rooney more than the dark angel I had always imagined him to be, said this in my opinion to be perceived as nonchalant and to avoid attempting an earnest explanation of his actual motivations.

In the subsequent years following the experience of seeing this, for me formative work of art and as the memory faded from itʼs immediate vibrancy, I chose photography as my artistic medium and subscribed myself to the doctrine called straight photography endorsed by another significant influence, Edward Weston. After finishing high school I enrolled at the Art Institute of Boston and passionately studied the Zone System, developed by Ansel Adams and learned the basics of the archival printing process. When I had reached the point where I felt I had a solid knowledge of the medium of photography and after having seen the early work of Mike and Doug Starn, I left the Art Institute because I felt the funds I would need for tuition would be better spent creating a significant body of work.

In the following years I created a technique using Polaroid film that was deliberately unconventional. I continued to enroll sporadically in photography courses during that time but since the general faculty reaction to my efforts were between cool and dismissive I ceased to seek their approval and rather made a radical attempt to distance my work from what their perception of art photography was.

Within a few years, after having attempted to live in Barcelona, Spain I found myself living in Munich, Germany. During the eleven years that I lived there being represented first by Cynthia Close formerly of Artworks¹ and subsequently by Brigitte Woischnik formerly of Foto Factory², I achieved moderate success as an artist as well as a commercial photographer making photographs commercially for magazines and advertising agencies as well as exhibiting my photographs and selling them to private collectors. The photographs that I sold to collectors were Cibachrome reproductions, mounted on aluminum plates and coated with Auto lacquer of the polaroids that I made regularly. Despite being unconventional in process and very well executed as well as beautiful, they were however universally accessible and in retrospect, generally unchallenging.

I had another epiphanic moment during this time after having delivered a commissioned series of prints to a private collector in Mannheim. She informed me that she was withholding payment of the series, which was for me a significant amount of money, because there were a few small blemishes in the auto lacquer on a couple of the prints. These blemishes were tiny and only visible in direct reflection of a light source. After having traveled to Mannheim in frustration to remedy the blemishes, on my return to Munich I decided to embark on creating a process that, rather than trying to create a mirror like print of an imaginary world, would be instead its own object with scars and blemishes an integral part of itʼs own aesthetic.

As fortune has it, about the time that I was closing in on a new process I had the opportunity to present my work and early attempts at this process to Rolf Müller who produced a magazine at the time for Heidelberg Press called HQ³. This magazine focused on a particular theme and featured photographs revolving around this theme. The particular theme he was seeking work for was “Reste” or “Leftovers”. Having recently been shown a book on the subject of the Mummies of Palermo by a friend, I expressed my wish to travel to Palermo Sicily, photograph the mummies and produce a series for HQ with my newly developed process. To my astonishment, he without hesitation agreed.

When, after exhaustive preparation, I finally entered the door to the catacomb a Capuchin monk solicited a donation to the monastery which I duly paid. Although photographing in the catacomb was permitted, I felt the unspoken expectation that it was to be minimal and worked while I was there as quietly and imperceptibly as possible. Arriving as soon as the catacomb opened in the morning I would take advantage of the first couple of hours before the rush of tourists would arrive. After three mornings of photographing it was made clear to me by the monks that I was no longer welcome regardless of how generous my donation was or how many postcards I bought. My work there however was complete. Rather than focusing of the impressive mass of the couple of thousand mummies on display, which had primarily been how I had seen the catacomb represented, I instead, had concentrated on them individually and attempted to make as intimate of a portrait as possible of each mummy I photographed. After returning to Munich with my film, developing and contact printing it, I needed several weeks to completely digest what I had made. Magazine publishing not being conducive to artistic digestion made it necessary for me to produce the first few prints that were published in HQ in 1995.

Unsatisfied with the initial prints published in HQ which I nonetheless stood by and still consider to be of the standard represented by a magazine whoʼs initials stand for high quality, I then took the process even further by working in larger scale on the prints, employing as well for the largest of the prints canvas embedded with photographic emulsion. What changed for me at that time was the approach I took toward handling the photographic material. By freeing myself from the confines of concerning myself with dust on the negatives, perfect rectangles and blemishes of the surface of the prints I focused my attention entirely on the overall aesthetic and impact of the print. I no longer tried to dry the prints so they would be entirely flat or worried that my fingerprints would appear on the surface. Through exhaustive experimentation with various combinations of toners I finally found the processes that would do justice to those negatives.

After having completed the “Mummies of Palermo” print series I was entirely changed. I began applying the approach I had taken to all of the photographs that I made. I remember a conversation with Jörg Badura, a photographer who was also represented by Foto Factory at the time warn me that by taking this radically different approach to my work I ran the serious risk of alienating my present clientele. As a business decision he was entirely correct. The commercial work I made at that time began to diminish and the handful of private collectors who supported my work waned in interest. Even Brigitte Woischnik, owner of Foto Factory, who had been a avid supporter of my work thus far began referring to me as her “special” photographer meaning, I believe, unpredictable. She among others found that they could no longer relate to my work. Even Daniel Blau, who runs an art gallery in Munich, son of Georg Baselitz, in explaining why he was reluctant to exhibit my work declared “People donʼt buy photographs of dead children!” It was at this point that I was entirely sure that I was on to something.

In the following years the commercial photographic projects I was commissioned became largely tormenting since, with the exception of a small handful of clients, namely Dagmar Murkudis of Marie Claire Magazine who granted me full creative license with every project I created for her, I was expected to produce photographs that were against my very core principles of aesthetic and content. Not only could I not relate to the products I was photographing, I was becoming increasingly embarrassed that I was producing these photographs. I decided then that I should move to Paris to find a more receptive audience than what Munich had to offer.

After living in Paris for nearly a year and enjoying moderate commercial success producing photographs that I stood entirely behind, with the help of Dominique Veret, a committed advocate of my work and close personal friend, I was introduced to then stylist Charlotte Flossaut and found myself photographing a collection of clothes designed by Jeremy Scott, a conceptual fashion designer. Upon realizing that he had intentionally designed clothes for anorexic models that a normal thin girl could not even fit into, I entirely lost my stomach for commercial photography of any kind. Soon thereafter I returned to Munich and decided to support myself by other means than commercial photography.

In the years since this time, having moved back to the United States my work has developed immensely. Freed of the expectation of commercial photographic production I now enjoy the possibility of completely digesting the content of my work before printing it and making no provisions whatsoever toward itʼs commercial viability. I photograph what I am earnestly drawn to, whether its a small object, a person or a landscape and am confident that my approach to my work is unique and entirely, unashamedly honest. I remain exceptionally proud of my artistic accomplishments on the whole. The experience I gained by living and working in Europe for so many years and having worked for the several fine publications that have featured my work during this time has given me the confidence to turn my back entirely on commercial photography and focus my creative attention exclusively on producing the work that moves me most. I strive to create work that has a timeless impact and will hopefully remain touching to the viewer for many eras to come and not be “old news” as soon as the next issue of a magazine is released.

My work, at its best, I see as a reflection of the viewer. Similar to a Rorschach test, I believe that the viewer makes their own associations with what they see in my work, especially in the abstract prints and extracts from it what stirs just below the surface of their own personal consciousness. Although my work is conceptual in nature, I still feel that it doesnʼt dismiss the visceral experience of the individual viewers own personal associations and emotions. If I havenʼt yet achieved the goal of producing the impact on the viewer that I felt decades ago in front of Francis Baconʼs “Study after Velazquezʼs Portrait of Pope Innocent X”, I nonetheless feel that Iʼm well on my way.

Please visit David Paul Lyon website.

ARTWORKS is now defunct and Cynthia Close is currently the executive director for Documentary Educational Resources that focuses on promoting independent documentary films.
Foto Factory closed their doors over a decade ago and Brigitte Woischnik is now a freelance literary editor for books mainly regarding the history of fashion. Most recently for a book about Lillian Bassman & Paul Himmel.
HQ Magazine was a project run by Buro Rolf Müller for Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG from 1985 until 1998 and hasn’t got much web presence but is known and regarded amongst the German design circles. The principle designer for that project was Mark Holt.

Searching for a cyanotype black toning

Fabiano Busdraghi — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 11:23:21 +0000

Aamon. Cyanotype toning: 5’ tannic acid 1%, 15” paper revelator 1+9, acetic acid 0.1%, 5’ tannic acid 0.1%. Dark points are negative holes and do not depend from toning. Canson “C” grain paper, 224g, 24x32cm. Image size 17x25cm.

All of the cyanotype toning formulas that I tried, completely bleaching the image in an alkali and re-developing it in a tanning agent for a long time, gave red-browned flat hues with a little dmax. I always obtained best results with long tanning bathes and a quick immersion in a diluted alkali, which gave a print with warm grey, brown or pink lights, while shadows are intense blue, slightly violet or black. A part of the original blue of the cyanotype is conserved in the final print, giving not only a cold hue to shadows, but also keeping relatively high the dmax, penalized by a complete alkaline whitening.

I think this is cyanotype toning big deal. The contrast drop in the middle tones can be corrected applying the right curve, the flattening of the high lights often creates a delicate effect of softness and lightness; but the loss of shadow density is a problem that still doesn’t have a solution. Certain images work even without blacks, all played on pastel colors, but others need the strength of intense and deep shadows.

Toning formulas that promise deep blacks, neutral lights and no paper dyeing (such as tea or concentrated tannic acid) are found in literature. In general they are variants of the procedure described at the beginning: alkali and tanning. The order of baths, the repetition or not of the successive immersions, ph control, intermediate washings and the tanning or/and alkali nature are the changeable elements. Those variations have a strong impact on final return, but they always have the same denominator: flatness of hues and dmax reduction. But I’m still searching for the magical combination that intensify a cyanotype rather than reducing it, turning the print into a palladium image infinitely less expensive.

Serendipity against severity

Moloch. Dualtone cyanotype: 30″ bleach 1%, acetic acid 0.1%, 5′ tannic acid1%, 5′ acetic acid 0.1%. Fabriano Paper 50, 25x35cm; image dimension: 18x27cm.

Yesterday night I made some attempts with some formulas. As usual, I didn’t follow a scientific method but a creative one, letting creativity and fate play their role. I tried in the past to formalize with strictness dark room tests, but I always failed. The thing is that some of the variables are hard to control, as temperature and environment humidity. Paper characteristics change from one stock to another and little variations are amplified. Moreover, because of the never-ending number of dissimilarities, it is required an infinite patience. It would be necessary to made them change one of a time, so I’d need thousands and thousands of tests and dark room days. Obviously, only printing Stouffer palettes to have the maximum rigor and the best ease of interpretation. This way, no image will be printed and life will be spent in taking boring tests. I’m sorry, but I’m a photographer and I’m not a lab technician. Life’s too short and all of the pictures I don’t take are images lost forever.

In certain cases I rather let variables evolve and print in an intuitive, not rigorous manner. Serendipity is a gift useful as much as meticulousness, while studying alternative techniques. By the way, a similar approach is found in many other areas. A sailboat can be managed because it gives back equilibrium; controlling every detail in a so difficult system or writing motion equations would be impossible.

Cyanotype toning material

Aamon. Cyanotype toning: 5′ tannic acid 1%, 5′ ammonia 1%, 5′ acetic acid 0,1%. Dark points are inside the negative and do not depend from toning. Rives BFK Paper, 28x38cm. Image dimension 18x26cm.

I therefore used a digital negative with color and curve adapted to carbon print. Cyanotype requires a lower difference of density, which means that images printed with those negatives will have completely posterized and white light, a strong contrast and a marked grain. In this case, those defects are not frustrating. I can see how toning behave with completely white lights in zones that didn’t receive any exposition. Too high contrast compensates the toning flatness. Image grain can be amplified or reduced during the process, and this is interesting information too.

I used daemon pictures, the Mascarons du Pont Neuf of Paris, because their negatives have many transparent parts, so I do have large zones in prints where blue is the deepest I can obtain on cyanotypes. Negatives are exposed for 12 minutes, the reference exposition timing, that in my case gave the deepest blue I can achieve. A higher exposition blends shadows without augmenting dmax.

It is recycle paper, and those are the variables that I deliberately choose not to control. It is the back of some not successful gum prints, VDB or cyanotypes. It is a paper that already went under chemical and mechanical treatments. Some sheets are sized to gelatine and some no. Brands are from Arche Platine, Fabriano Artistico, Fabriano 50, Rives BFK, Canson “C” grain. Some cyanotypes, before toning, have been left for some days oxidizing, to obtain a definitive color, some other only a few hours.

Tannic acid is an old 1994 package. In every case, due to past experiences, I still haven’t seen big differences between tannic acid concentration and solution (except for the paper hue due to tea). So I’d say that the active ingredient is still quite functioning.

Kai Hamman cyanotype toning

Moloch. Complete cyanotype toning: 5′ ammonia 1%, 1′ acetic acid 0.1%, 5′ tannic acid 1%, 5′ acetic acid 0.1%. Bubble stains were present on paper even before printing the cyanotype and they do not depend from toning. Fabriano Paper Rives BFK, 28x38cm; image dimension: 17x26cm.

Kai Hamann published a toning procedure whom results, if not modified during scanning, are extremely astonishing. The reported examples have a pink hue that I easily recognize, some other are perfectly neutral, but most of all shadows have an intense and deep black, as far as in video some prints seem palladium ones or perfect Van Dyke Browns.

Resuming the procedure described on his site, Kai Hammann toning is the following: acetic acid 1%, water washing, ammonia 0,5% between 1 and 16 minutes depending on the required hue, water washing, acetic acid 1%, water washing, tannic acid 1% for some minutes, acetic acid washing 1%. At that time he suggests a method to control the final hue of the print, adding one more softly alkali bath after the last washing, but I didn’t explore this way because the last acid bath in Kai Hamann’s table seem having the most cold and neutral hues, whose I’m interested in.

Carrying out the procedure to the letter gave wonderful results, often with beautiful hues, but it was still impossible to obtain a black print and contain the dmax loss. Bleaching the image with ammonia gave prints with pink-browned lights and vaguely neutral shadows, something like black-purplish but absolutely not deep. Bleaching only a part of prints for some seconds, I obtain a familiar effect of warm gray high lights and purplish blue shadows, but even in this case I lose dmax.

Therefore the proposed toning technique doesn’t work for me. I do not know if it is due to the ammonia or tannic acid quality, water or –more probably- cyanotype formula and composition (ammoniacal ferric citrate is a bad defined compound and it varies from package to package).

Interesting collateral and useful information –long live serendipity!- is that the use of acetic acid bath, even if diluted, for example 0.1%, between alkali and tannic, sensibly preserves the bath itself from contamination. Bathing even only one picture directly from an alkalic bath to tannic acid turns this last into a brown compound and easily gets the paper dirty. In two or three images the tannic solution is practically useless. Even an intermediate water bath easily contaminates the tannic acid and the washing bath becomes toning itself, therefore it must be regularly changed. Acetic acid bath gets less dirty and most of all allowed the usage of tannic acid during the entire session without any visible alteration.

Support for hydrochloric acid cyanotype

Hydrochloric acid is often cited as cyanotype support. It is said to augment blue dmax, giving a darker and deeper hue to shadows, almost black, but also providing neutral middle tones, such as metallic grey. I found indications on its use as first developing bath (I use very diluted acetic acid or water) or toning-support.

I tried this last procedure, immersing a washed and dried cyanotype in a hydrochloric acid 2% solution for 20’, but the color hasn’t changed at all and the dmax absolutely hasn’t augmented.

I don’t want to try higher concentrations, because hydrochloric acid, more than dangerous, gets paper fibers fragile. I still have to verify if hydrochloric acid as development bath achieve the described results. I wouldn’t be willing to use concentrated acid anyway, since some sources cite the possibility of expansion for cyanide gases when a not perfectly washed cyanotype is bathed in an acid.

Paper developer as alkali in cyanotype toning

Some sources cites ammonia and tannic acid toning as “red brown”, while giving a toning formula of “grey black” that uses a paper developer as alkali bath instead of ammonia or sodium carbonate. I tried this combination too, using a new diluted developer 1+9.

I was expecting a hue slightly different from the ammonia one, not to hope in dmax miracles. I actually obtained wonderful purplish hues, most of all in the tannic acid combinations, some seconds inside the developer and then tannic acid again, but it is absolutely impossible to obtain black cyanotypes without dmax loss during toning.

Black cyanotype is still far away

All of the described cyanotype toning techniques makes splendid results, particular and unique images, delicate hues, optimal gum prints backgrounds, etc… No one that I tried, at least in my case, is able to produce a black toning, intensification or at least a limited dmax loss, which happens every time I tone a cyanotype. A hydrochloric acid bath particularly seems not to influence a washed and dried cyanotype.

Collateral information, a useful forethought consists in using acetic acid baths between alkali and tannic acid to preserve this last solution, sensibly augmenting its life.

Tea toned posterized cynotype

Fabiano Busdraghi — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 22:38:39 +0000

Andrea. Cynotype posterized by tea toning and sodium carbonate. Fabriano Artistico Paper gelatine sized, salted and pre-acidified in citric and acetic acid. Paper and image size: 19x28,5 cm. Unique print.
Please visit Tea toned posterized cynotype for the full size image.

It is known and decanted the importance of taking notes and conform to standard all the procedures when working in dark room, mostly when working with antique techniques. But sometimes it is funny to let yourself go and dare. The majority of the prints will be thrown away, but sometime you can get unique results that you would have never been able to obtain if following the known ways. Something you’ve never seen before, because it is born with the help of destiny.

This is the history of one of those images.

Couple of years ago, far 2004/2005, I was fighting with salted paper, and I couldn’t print more than a pair of decent images. I couldn’t understand which was the variable that stonewalled. I was testing several types of paper, sizing, hardening… I found the right combination for a great result, I prepared 20 sheets with as much attention as I could, but in the end no one was working. There must be some kind of variable that I couldn’t control that was making fun of me. The result was nothing but tons of lost hours and lots of paper ready to be sensitized and left in the dark room to get older.

Today I accidentally found a folder with thirty of those sized and salted papers. Arche Acquarelle, Fabriano Artistico, Rives BFK. Each one had a different concentration of gelatine, a different hardening, a different quantity of salt. All of those paper where mixed together, discards and failings who were waiting to be used. I say this is the good occasion to play with some cyanotypes.

As I’m not sure that sodium chloride match with cyanotype (chloride sounds like basic), I prepared a bath with 10g of citric acid and 3 liters of water. Ph is almost 3, strongly acid. Ok. Let’s put all of my sheets in it, one by one. I measure Ph again and we’re now backing to 4-5. I add one more liter of water and 2cc of acetic acid at 80%. Ph is now still at 4. A thimbleful of acetic acid, how much? Well, a cork of my bottle…

I lay my sheets to dry, sensitize with classic cyan, 0.8+0.8 for two on 18×28.

I sweep the brush without even trace the borders with the pencil, desiccation with warm dryer (I never do it, but who cares, I’m playing!). I don’t measure the time of drying (Usually I use 10’ between the first and the second coating and 30’ before the exposition). Under UV for, I don’t know, 15 minutes? Digital negative for Van Dyke, then too much contrasted, but who cares, I’m playing, ain’t I?

The image is quite beautiful when getting out of the printing frame. It’s strange. It generally seems grayer… I put it on the acid water and suddenly it turns into deep blue, I’ve never seen something so quick. Suddenly though, blue filaments fill the water and the image is completely cancelled. Bright lights completely burnt, a few shadows almost closed. What a pity, this paper was nice and thin. Probably gelatine doesn’t let cyanotype to attach paper and it’s completely washed away. I made some more prints with some drops of wetting agent to augment the penetration, but I obtain bad results.

At the end of the afternoon I have a series of awful cyanotypes. What I was expecting? Working with precision is a rule that worth the while. Fantasy and game don’t bring any result. Proust said that big works starts while bored, not inspired. Who knows if he was a dark room lover?

I’m a little bit depressed. There’s nothing worst than a day in dark room without any decent result. Well, I can at least use the cyanotypes to test toning. I always used bleach as whitener; let’s see what happens using the sodium carbonate. I also recently read that toning to tannic acid doesn’t change the appearance of the image (as I verified), but putting a cyan toning to tannic acid inside the carbonate sodium is far different from a direct cyan inside carbonate… Well, cyan takes two days to oxidize and get blue, but who cares, I’m only enjoying myself…

I prepare a tea bought at the supermarket, 5 tea bag for a smoking teapot. 12g of carbonate and 600ml of water. Tea is boiling, but who cares? I put the first image inside, an old Fabriano Artistico that quickly turn into tea color. I leave it there, but I don’t take care of time. It doesn’t matter; I just want to see if it has the same pink I get with bleach. Some minutes of washing and then carbonate. The image suddenly changes, turning into red brick in a few seconds.

I then see something strange and magnificent, the image is negative.

I put it into water, dazed. Toning took from 2 to 10 second; shadows are posterized and brighter than the middle grays. Lights are red brick colored.

I wash everything for a few minutes and put it to dry, hoping it doesn’t change. Meanwhile, I try to tone a dozen of cyanotypes, but I absolutely do not obtain the result I got before.

The print only has 4 tones. Everything from the middle tones is red-bricked. Something over an intense brown, such as some middle of the Van Dyke Brown. Shadows are divided in two. There’s a part which is less intense, it is white green with lot of brown. The other part is white-light blue with brown again. The fact that they’re posterized with a brighter color makes the image a mixture of positive and negative. Tea tone gives somehow an antique and scrambled aspect.

Lethally beautiful, absolutely irreproducible.

I should dig in the salted paper of a couple of years ago and in all the casualties that I met today. Scanning doesn’t give the idea at all, it’s a unique print and I will hold it tight.