Sunday 14 July 2013

Halfway There

   Finally (after many, many, many sheets) I have got a result I am happy with from Slavich Unibrom in lith developer.  I haven't been out shooting much lately so the majority of my darkroom work has been in revisiting old negatives from the time when all I had was my scanner.  I remembered I had shot a few rolls inside an abandoned power station some time ago using my old Lubitel 166b, one of my main cameras before I bought my Bronica SQ-A.  I thought the decay and dereliction inside the station would work well with a cold, stark lith effect so I decided to give it a try.  If I could get the Unibrom to work then I knew it would give me the look I wanted, the problem was that ever since opening the packet I have been plagued with uneven develolment.

  This time, however, I had a plan.  After a hefty amount of googling I had come accross a few people who had soaked their print in warm water for a minute or so prior to developing.  I decided to give it a try, after all - if it messed up I could just add it to the pile of other failures!

  As it so happens the presoak worked a charm! Development started in the darkest areas of the print as opposed to the edges and continued as with any other lith paper.  I let development continue until an appropriate snatch point was reached.  

  The only problem I am still having is in retaining highlight detail, I just cant seem to get that extra bit needed before the blacks get too dense.  Ah well, keep trying I guess!  At least im getting consistently better results now.  Im looking forward to trying out the unibrom again in my next printing session, perhaps with some second pass lith...


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