RHA exhibition and Lith printing.

RHA Gallery

Last Wednesday I had a pleasure to take part in a photographic tour, lead by Amelia Stein, organised every year, during the Annual Exhibition in RHA gallery. (27 May - 09 August)

It's a good occasion to meet fellow photographers and discuss work, sizes, presentation/framing issues and as always having a chat about digital versus analogue.

I have a pleasure to present this little lith print there, this year:

                           

Waiting for Z.

This is a part of a series of pictorial landscapes of Wicklow Mountains. I've started it in 2012, and came back to printing it in April this year. My motivation for undertaking this project again was an upcoming exhibition in Galerie Lisette (where I decided to show it) and the fact that the above image was chosen for the RHA Exhibition.

Untitled

The whole series can be viewed  on my web site - here. It is on ongoing project so there should be more prints soon.

These lith prints were created with use of mostly colour holga negatives (and some B&W). I've used Rollei Vintage developer and Fomatone Classic Matt paper.

The exhibition in the Galerie Lisette, Enniskerry, was held in May, but most of these prints stayed in the Gallery and they are there, available for view and purchase.

Lith printing is one of the alternative photographic techniques, invented in 1970s. In this process a negative is heavily overexposed onto regular or ‘lith’ dedicated paper and developed in highly diluted lith developer. Prints are not developed to completion but snatched and stopped at the right time, which is crucial for the look of the image.  The results may vary from very detailed to very grainy, painterly and colourful (from pink to orange to brown).

Each print is very unique and it is very difficult to achieve repeatable results due to quick exhaustion of the developer. The technique was made popular mainly by works of music photographer Anton Corbijn.

Back to lith printing

These are the results of a few recent lith printing sessions with use of medium format negatives, created with Holga camera.

It's really amazing how this process is transforming images, revealing something completely new from the photograph with each print.

I've used both colour and B&W negatives. Generally colour negatives can give good results with lith, but not all are suitable and orange mask creates difficulties and increases exposure time. It’s especially challenging with moody, misty, low contrast holga images I’ve used. 

These are the test prints of a possible bigger series of a pictorial landscapes I'd like to create. 

All images printed with Rollei Vintage Lith Developer on Fomatone MG classic paper.(first, third and fifth printed with colour neg.)

Lith printing

Lith printing is my new adventure, started just recently.
I thought it may be a nice technique for printing collodion glass negatives and I truly find the results much more interesting then with traditional B&W printing.
I did only two printing sessions - with film negative and with collodion ambrotypes and I still have a lot to learn, but I really like it so far. 
I like the fact that the results are unrepeatable and a bit unpredictable. On the other hand the choice of paper, exposure and development times give many options of controll and allows for creating completely different prints for the same negative. 
The interesting fact about lith printing is the way of controlling the contrast - brights are controlled by the exposure and darks by the development and can be adjusted separately. Short exposure time and long development will result in bigger contrast and fine grain, while long exposure and short development gives less contrasty and grainy, often 'dreamy' like prints. It will also influence the colour of the print. But a lot depends on the quality and age of the developer, which is exhausting very quickly. Development in this process is called 'infectious' what means that dark tones develop faster then bright ones and the darker they become the faster they develop. Watching this and waiting for the 'snatch' point can be very exciting. 

In my first steps I have used Fomatone MG classic matt and gloss papers and Rollei Vintage Lith Developer, and here are the examples:

contact print from 8x10 collodion plate, 40s exposure (f8,just to have comparison with times used for enlarging film negs) 6min development, Fomatone MG classic gloss:

25x25 cm print of 6x6 B&W negative, 2min exposure (f8), 11min development, Fomatone MG classic matt:

contact print from 4x5 collodion plate, 35s exposure (f8) 6min development, (gloss):

contact print from 8x10, varnished collodion plate, 90s exposure (f8) 7min development, (gloss).:

more about lith printing:
www.unblinkingeye.com
www.lithprint.com