Steve Maniscalco Photography

Cat Tails and Sunflowers

This is a different sort of style for me...at least different from the style I normally bring to this sort of subject. 

I wanted to see how the Mamiya 7 would handle being shot wide open.  These images confirm my guess that the out of focus fall off is not very pronounced unless you are at a minimal focusing distance. Seems the one real weakness of the system is he f4 lens.  Oh well, I have other tools for very narrow depth of field shots.

I like these as they are in any case.

Mamiya 7, FP4, Thornton's 2-bath developer

Two Bikes

Two different approaches to 2-wheeled transportation in a college town.

Schwinn

Keger

Mamiya 7, FP4, thornton's 2-bath

A Brownie in Flagstaff

We took a short trip up the mountains from Phoenix to Flagstaff this weekend. We like to go once in the Summer to escape the heat, and once in Winter to see the snow. I got a couple of hours to wander this small college/western town and take pictures.  My Brownie Hawkeye Flash had half a roll in it, so I dropped it in the bag with the Mamiya 7.

That one element plastic lens does a pretty good job.  Using a camera like this will teach you a valuable lesson about exposure.  The camera has one aperture and one shutter speed.  You point it and snap the shutter.

As usual, this is FP4 developed in Thornton's 2-bath formula.

UV Light Source

I thought I'd share my nifty UV source set up. 

Not having several hundred dollars to spend on one of those very nice manufactured UV sources, I tinkered myself this fairly simple solution. Basically, I wanted something that would allow me to expose my cyanotypes that was inexpensive and easy to put away when I was done with it. My solution was to take a large plastic storage bin and convert it to an exposure box.

I started out with a piece of "handy board" sized to accept three 18 inch fluorescent tube fixtures. I mounted the fixtures on the board and wired them together to a single plug (don't try this at home kids unless you've done the electricity thing before...ok?). 

I then used a bit of hardware to mount chains and S-hooks at all four corners of the handy board.  This arrangement allows me to hook the light fixture to the sides of the plastic bin and dangle it at various heights above the contact print frame that I've placed at the bottom of the bin.

As a bonus, when I'm done printing, everything fits in the box, the lid goes on, and it slides in to a closet till next time. Total cost of this project was about $85, with the biggest part of the expense being the light fixtures and the UV bulbs.

Things to look out for in this project? Make sure your bin has nice strong edges and that it is large enough to hold your contact print frame on the bottom (which is smaller than the top of the box).

Another Lesson

Toning cannot salvage a badly exposed print.

I saved a number of bad cyanotype prints to experiment with. A couple of those were badly overexposed. They were still worthwhile for learning the chemistry, but there just is no cure for their underlying problems. Bleaching out an overexposed print doesn't fix the lack of contrast.

Perfectly logical if you give it some thought I guess.

Cyanotype Toning, Further

Original image:

Bleached then toned with tanic acid.

I was very excited to find that my past failures with the tanic acid toning were primarily due to a lack of patience.  When the print is in the bath, not much seems to be going on.  After a few minutes of drying though, the effect is quite good.

Additional bath in dilute ammonia/water solution.

I've used an ammonia/water bath to clear the muddiness of tea toned images before and never noticed the color shift.  Without the brown tea staining, I can see that we get a definite red/magenta color. I rather like it.  In any case, it gives me another tone in my arsenal.

I think that in the future, I will always make a 2nd or even 3rd copy of every cyanotype...keeping the original and experimenting with toning the other copies.

Now I need some thoughts on what other chemicals I can throw at this process...

Before and After

Continuing on with my Cyanotype toning experiments.

When you first drop a cyanotype in the bleaching solution, the change that takes place is pretty interesting.  It doesn't just go pale yellow on you, that takes time.  At first, the print becomes a bit lighter and the cyan blue changes to something more like a straight or denim blue.  I've noticed this before and thought it might be a nice effect to go for on purpose.

So, for the fun of it, I dropped an overexposed cyanotype (too dark) in a very dilute bleaching solution. I pulled it out again when it looked about right and put it immediately in to a rinse to stop the bleaching. The result is another interesting variation on the standard cyanotype print.  It's encouraging enough that I think I might drastically overexpose a print or two and subject it to the short/mild bleaching.

Here is the result of my first test:

Cyanotype Toning

Trying to refine my process.  I'm still not satisfied with the results.  I am getting great feedback from the images on Flickr, but frankly, the scans still look better than the actual print.

I'm not going to go over all the details...this isn't a "how to." Since I'm not getting what I want yet, I really don't know "how to." I will show a bit of the process though.

We start, obviously enough, with a "before." The cyanotype before the toning process.

Next, we have the bleached print.  Bleaching the print is a scary thing. You drop it in the chemicals and the image you just worked hard to get begins to disappear before your eyes.  I actually think I need to bleach a bit more, but I keep losing my nerves.

Next, the bleached print goes in the toning solution.  I'm using a mix of the tanin based solution from Bostick_Sullivan and strong black tea.  The tea contains a good deal of tanin also and adds a brown stain.  Tanins apparently work on the prussian blue ink of the cyanotype and turn it blackish, purplish something or other...hard to describe. I also have not used the tanins alone, so I really don't know what they would do without the tea added.

As I said before, this scan doesn't really accurately show the print.  The actual print is darker and more of an eggplant color.  Perhaps a piece of dark paper behind the print when scanning would yield a more accurate scan.  In any case, I rather like the scanned image, I just can't get the print to look enough like it.

I have improved the print by returning it to a long water bath after toning.  This reduces some of the muddiness.  Another bath in a dilute ammonia/water solution brought it further towards the light. One more trip through the water removes the ammonia that might degrade the image over time.

Things I can try next: 1) Bleach the print even further. 2) Skip the tea and hope that leaves the highlights more intact.

BTW. The sharp eye'd reader may note that the original cyanotype above is not the same as the print I toned (see the different brush strokes).  The original was too good a copy to try toning. I toned a version that had some small flaws that made it more dispensable.

Cyanotypes

Two from last night's prining session.  

I believe I'm letting the paper site too long between sensitizing and printing.  I need to make more time to do it right.

9x6 cyanotypes from digital negatives

Gear and Twitter

A "What's going on post."

I received a Kiev 60 from the Ukraine the other day.  It looks to be perfectly functional and I'm looking forward to getting a roll of film through it.  On the down side, this is the older version where the TTL prism needs an adapter to take available batteries...so, I'm now waiting for another little package from the Ukraine. 

Info on Russian medium format cameras abounds on the Internet and I doubt I'l have anything really new to add...but that won't stop me.  So, after I get some pictures taken of and with it, I'll post something here on my full impressions.

My last point and shoot film camera died some time ago.  It was the excellent Olympus Stylus Epic II.  I find myself missing it, so I'm on the look out for a replacement.  I thought I might try a Fuji Tiara, but the one I'm following is likely to go for more money than I'll pay for a camera that I tend to dangle out of the car window as I drive.  I missed a shot at a zoom version of the Tiara that went cheap.  I'd rather have the 28mm prime version, but it looks to be 3 or 4 times as expensive.  Maybe I'll end up with another Epic.

I've discovered Twitter.  So far, I think it's a good thing.  The hardest part has been finding people with actual photo related content to follow.  I don't mind the occasional tweet on what they're having for breakfast or where they are going today, but I do wish they'd  leave out the political content.  I've dropped 2 people putting out a point of view that angers me too much to subject myself to.  

If you twitter, you can follow me here.  I might brag over my first cup of espresso in the morning, but overall, I'll try to keep it photography related.

Coffee with Phil

Downtown Phoenix Starbucks. Phil is a regular. He sits quietly and watches traffic while working his cigar and coffee.  He's a quiet gentleman, not much interested in conversation.

I wonder what I'll be thinking about when I'm sitting somewhere at his age.

First shot with an old Sears 35|rf.  Second shot with Fed-2 w/jupiter 9.

Color

Just to prove I shoot it now and again.

NOT Ektar, 21mm skopar, R3A

Toning

All I finished this weekend was one cyanotype toning experiment. I'm mixed on it at best.  

I used the toning kit from Bostick-Sullivan, which consists of a bleaching agent and a tannin based toner.  The bleaching agent was very efficient.  Within less than a minute, the original image was bleached as far as I wanted it to go.  If I use it again in the future, I'm thinking I'll dilute it a bit more so I can have better control.

The toner was a disappointment.  I mixed it at the highest recommended strength and still, all I got was a muddy grey image.  After about 10 minutes, I decided to throw in some strong tea to dye the whole thing brown.  The end image has its good points, but it still was not what I was hoping for.

Really, the scan is better than the original. The luminosity seen here is not so apparent on the print.

cyanotype from digital negative

A Conversation

R3A, Nokton 35mm f1.7, kodak 400uc

Two Views

I just noticed these two shots alongside each other in my flickr stream.  They were taken 1000 miles and about 2 years apart and it seems I've chosen the same basic composition for both.  The subject matter is essentially the same, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.  Still, I hate finding that I treat the same subject the same way each time I encounter it.  Then again, I haven't shot enough of this sort of thing to declare myself to be in a rut quite yet.

New Orleans Street Car

Late Night Bus