Author: Tim BOWMAN

Photographic film and paper developers generally consist of four components which work together to develop your images. Here’s a quick overview of the components and their purposes.

Please note: I’ll mention some chemicals in this article. Some of them are pretty harmless, but some can be downright dangerous. Please educate yourself about safe handling of chemistry before you start messing around with any of them.

Developing agent

The active part of a developer is the developing agent. It converts silver halide crystals into stable metallic silver that’s captured in the emulsion. Metallic silver is  awesome because it blocks light. And as a noble metal, it’s also very stable.

There are a bunch of developing agents. metol, hydroquinone, and phenidone are some common ones. Each developing agent acts differently on silver halides, which is why we have so many different developer formulas. Some formulas  combine multiple developing agents for the way they work together. One common combination is metol with hydroquinone (we call these MQ developers.) These two work together more strongly than each one does individually. This is called superadditivity.

Preservative

Developing agents are easily oxidized during development or even just while they’re stored in a bottle before use. To prevent this, we add a preservative to keep them fresh. It’s the same idea as adding a  preservative to processed food so it keeps longer. In fact, it’s often the same preservative. Go through your pantry and see how many packaged foods contain sodium sulfite. That’s the same preservative used in most developer formulas.

Accelerator

As naturally reactive as they are, most developing agents don’t really get going until they’re in an alkaline environment. The accelerator raises the PH to provide that environment.
Many of the chemicals we use as accelerators also have uses in the home as cleaners. Borax is used in many cleaners, as is sodium carbonate (a. k. a. washing soda). Sodium hydroxide, a strong base, is commonly used to open clogged drains.  These three are frequently used in photo developers (but not simultaneously!)

Restrainer

All of the components so far keep our developer converting silver halides to metallic silver. This one slows down the developing action.

If the developing agent is overly activated (too strong an alkaline environment) it will reduce all of the silver halides, not just the exposed ones that make up our image. To avoid this fog of uncontrolled development, we use a restrainer in our developer. This pulls back the action of the developing agent and encourages it to only work on the exposed silver halide crystals.

The most common restrainers are potassium bromide and benzotriazole. Some developers, such as D-76, are formulated so carefully that they don’t need a restrainer.

Go read Troop and Anchell

Now that you understand what the four basic developer components are doing, you may be thinking about your preferred developer and  wondering how its components work together. I highly recommend that you get your hands on one or both of the following books.

• The Darkroom Cookbook, 4th edition. Steve Anchell. Published March 24, 2016 by Routledge.
• The Film Developing Cookbook, 2nd edition. Bill Troop and Steve Anchell. Published December 4, 2019 by Routledge.

Silver gelatin is the most luscious photographic material. Prove me wrong.

In support of my argument, I give you the curly sculpture of an air-dried print, the sounds of its crisp tension, as well as its luxurious surface. We’re “not supposed” to touch the surface. “Oils,” they say. But touch one. Especially a glossy one. It feels like a baby’s perfect skin, firm and smooth. And it’s full of actual silver.

I rest my case.

Cognitive thought is the picture killer. Here’s Henry Wessel talking about photographing while nearly asleep. I share this with you because the majority of the photographs in the Winston-Salem project are made in the same state. Early alarm, out of bed, into clothing, grab camera, go. I’m out a bit later than him because I like it as the blue hour goes golden just before the direct sunbeams start pouring in. Retaining the sleepy mental state means I’m not overthinking anything, just seeing and reacting.

Henry Wessel: Photographing while “half asleep”

Also, from this other video, a quote:

“I photograph anything that catches my eye. That’s the best reason to photograph.”

Henry Wessel.

If you have already welcomed a copy of Signs of Life into your own life, you know what this experience feels like. If not, grab a fresh cup of coffee and enjoy this look at the book.

To purchase your own copy, please visit the store.

There is a block of woods in the Winston-Salem warehouse district. I call it the fairy woods. On this particular afternoon the light was blasting through there beautifully.

This image is from an 8×10 paper negative. Paper negatives at this size record tons of detail and this image is one you could walk into. Until today, I’ve been working on it as an 8×10 contact print. It’s beautiful and precious at that scale, but it’s the kind of print that’s best explored with a magnifying glass.

It’s even better at twice that size. At 16×20 it feels more welcoming, maybe because it’s closer to human scale. Sometimes bigger is better.

Also, see the way the bokeh gets all squished in the corners and the bright brights glow? I live for those delicious artifacts! Have a look at these detail views.

French sculptor Paul-Albert Bartholomé (1848-1928) on the (then) current mania for “artistic” manipulation in photography:

I am irritated by most of the photographs in which the authors have intervened to create works that are no longer photographs and are not drawings. They suggest to me only imperfect imitations of etchings or reproductions of paintings. . . . I do not mean to say that one cannot produce fine works with photography, but one should stick to composition, to selection, to the variety of lightings, to his own preferences in arrangement, and I assure you, that if he lets it go at that, then gradually the machine and the light will give him results entirely personal. Think, compose, prepare your subject in all possible ways, use feeling, then open the objective [lens] and put your hands in your pockets, or else have someone put handcuffs on you.

Found in Steichen, the Master Prints 1895-1914. Quoted by George Benson, in “Pictorial Photography: A Series of Interviews,” Camera Work (New York), no 24 (October 1908).

Emphasis mine.

All of these photographs were found in the course of other activities. None of it is set up. The world is endlessly giving. All you have to do is pay attention.

Signs of Life has the heart of a zine and the jacket of a library book. Here, I (mis)use digital printing technology to present everyday images from my life. It is possibly the most neatly presented zine in the world, unless the book-making robot goofs and glues pages together willy-nilly or sticks a bit of fuzz under the cover. It’s been known to happen.

Signs of Life is a 6 by 9 inch linen-wrapped hardbound book containing 72 black and white images. It is printed in one pass of black ink on 148 pages of 60-pound cream paper. The cover is grey and the title and author are stamped in white on the spine. Each copy is signed and numbered on the title page.

Want one? It’s available in the shop.

When I make my cyanotype photogram “astrofauxtographs,” I often think about the achingly beautiful images made by space probes, such as this one taken of Saturn’s moon, Enceladus, by the Cassini spacecraft.

I know they’re meant to be scientific documents. And if you dig through NASA’s photo archive you’ll see plenty of unspectacular photographs with loads of useful data. They’re the result of a specific observation of a subject from a certain angle.

Generally, they don’t sing. But sometimes, they do.

What a universe we live in!

“Dark Moon, Dramatic Plume” Image courtesy of NASA. https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/15473/dark-moon-dramatic-plume/