I’ve not spent much time at the studio of late, but I am well aware that I’d agreed to contribute to an exhibition at the end of the year. I’m not the type of photographer that has a body of work, and often edit my plates with a hammer.
Yesterday I spent a few hours at the studio having a good clean up and sort out in preparation for a day at the studio today.
I’m still intrigued by the Bromoil process with success being a little hit and miss. Sometimes it works relatively easily and then at other times your fighting it all the way at every step.
These are a mix of film and digital negatives, the ink on the digital neg acetate takes far too long too dry and I noticed some contaminant due to my impatience. I’ve printed out different negs and left to dry till next time. In the past I have used Ilford Warmtone FB with very good success but not today. The ink was taking some working to impress an image of any sort.
I switched over to the remains of my Foma 113 Variant paper, this small test print resisted in the blacks for a while but later became a little more forgiving. I’ll have to buy some more.
I’ve read that Ilford Cooltone works very well for Bromoil, but I think its a gloss finish and I’m not a fan. My other option if I cant pin down a reliable workflow I’ll have to give a hand applied emulsion a go. I do have a bottle of Fotospeed emulsion in the darkroom.
I switched back to the Ilford Warmtone at the end just to see if a longer soak would help. This took so much work just to get it to this state. Original print was at Grade 1.
I hope to be in the studio again at the weekend for another go.