Experimental Photography - Liquid Emulsion

As part of our experimental photography brief we completed some workshops covering 4 different techniques, namely: Liquid emulsion, Light painting and Projector photography, and Pin hole photography. These workshops were intended to start us off with basic ideas to help start us off with generating our own ideas or to take the workshops further.

The first experiment we did was with liquid emulsion. The emulsion is photosensitive silver based sensitizer, it is basically the same as is used on photo paper you would purchase, but in liquid form. It can be applied to many different surfaces meaning you can turn almost anything in to a photographic object.

When wet, the emulsion is very 'slow' (not very sensitive to light) , as it dries it becomes 'quicker' (more sensitive to light). When the emulsion we were using was dry, it had an ISO of 4. It didn't really matter in this case though because we were using an enlarger to print an image, rather than use it as a film or plate to get a negative.

In the dark room we coated some watercolour paper and some fabric with the liquid emulsion. To apply an even coat, we used a paintbrush to brush width ways and then length ways across both the paper and the fabric to try and cover as much of the surfaces as possible. This proved to be quite difficult as the emulsion is clear/opaque and hard to see even under the safe red light. The emulsion takes around 24 hours to dry at room temperature, but we wouldn't be back in the dark room for another week.

I had trouble with my prints as I kept losing concentration in the dark room, it's my own fault, and a series of silly mistakes led to me not having a decent print with either the paper or the fabric.

Anyway, I will explain the process and hopefully I will follow my own instruction better next time!

First you must choose a negative to put in the enlarger (the enlarger projects light through the negative, producing the positive image on your chosen sensitized object).

When you are creating a print you must first make a test strip. A test strip is made by giving the paper (or whatever your medium) multiple exposures across the image to find the optimum exposure settings. Below are my test strips from the watercolour paper; each line represents +3 seconds of exposure, beginning at 3 seconds on the lightest section. 
The test strips were made by cutting the paper in half, and cutting that half in half again meaning I would get one A5 print, and two A6 test strips.

Here is a digital scan of the negative used:

From the test strips you can see that around 9 to 12 seconds is a suitable exposure time.

To make sure the rest of the paper is not exposed, you used a piece of blocking card that doesn't allow light through, and move it along the paper as you expose. You can begin with your longest or shortest exposure, the diagram below demonstrates exposing for the longest exposure first; if you were exposing for your shortest exposure first, you would cover up the paper instead of revealing it.
So that your exposure times are the same, you use a self timer on the enlarger that switches on and off the bulb automatically.

 

The problem I had with my paper exposure was that on the enlarger the 'self timer' switch and the 'constant' switch are right next to each other. The room is dark. I was rushing. I think you can guess what happened. Therefore I have no final print; but this doesn't really matter to me as I know that I can do it, although I guess it would have been nice to have a proper print of this image. I might use this format to present some of my work if I feel it suits the photos I've taken.

The second piece I did was on the fabric. I followed the same process as with the paper but the negative wasn't really producing a clear image. For my print I cranked up the magenta filter to provide more contrast, and gave a slightly longer exposure to compensate as the filter absorbs some light. As it is a colour negative, the areas that would be black or grey on a black and white negative were instead transparent blue. This didn't give good contrast on the image and so all the detail was pretty much washed out.

This is the final image:

Here is a digital scan of the negative used:

Disappointing to say the least, but it was down to poor choice of negative. The photo was taken at Leeds Festival 2009 and I thought it would be a good idea to have it printed on a piece of frayed fabric as it is reminiscent of the festival experience and so is suitable medium for the image. The negative is very transparent. The red of the flare is a pale blue on the negative and so light just went straight though it. You can see the white blob of where the flare is on the fabric.

I liked the textured that the watercolour paper and fabric, and it is interesting to think of all the objects this can be applied to, with the right image and the right object, each can enhance the other to produce a more attention grabbing piece of work.


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