# My Mini in Salt



## ceeboy14 (Dec 7, 2012)




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## terri (Dec 8, 2012)

Ha!  I love it.  Yummy grain.


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## hydroshock (Jan 21, 2013)

Excellent!


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## ceeboy14 (Jan 21, 2013)

I went back and checked...this was shot with a Da Vinci 4x5 pinhole camera. I think about a 6 sec exposure on Arista ISO 400 film. It's a straight contact frame print with 15-20 drops of silver nitrate on a salted paper. I never get real fancy with the salt side, as often using table salt as Bostick-Sullivan's premade stuff. All you need is a decent binder applied uniformly across the grain of the paper, in this case Arches Platine. I have noticed that some "sea" salts create a hint of magenta toning to the image.

I sometimes took my students to the beach when we did large cyanotypes and used the ocean as the rinse (later rinsing thoroughly in fresh water). While there, we would soak about 30 sheets of 11 x 15 paper in the surf, take them back to school, dry, cut and use for salted prints..worked great. (We blocked them with soaker sheets and put them in a printer's press to keep flat.)


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## amolitor (Jan 21, 2013)

Nicely done! I like the look of salt prints, always have.

I figured you'd actually preserved your mini in a tun of salt or something, though, so I was kinda bummed to see a print!


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## amolitor (Jan 21, 2013)

I gotta say, the photo itself just looks like nuthin, though. Maybe with the truck gone it would be ok. The mini has a nice look to it, of course, and I kind of dig the telephone pole in the background, but all-up the photo is just a 'wtf a piccie of me car, wot?' snap. I know you do vastly better work than this!

Trying to save a bad photo with a nifty olde schoole processe? It's beneath you, man


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## ceeboy14 (Jan 21, 2013)

I used it in my photography class to demonstrate the use of a pinhole camera, process 4 x 5 film in a flat tray, then to make a contact salt print. It wasn't meant to turn the art world upside down, only to perhaps spark an idea or two into some of my students who really liked doing experimental photography.


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## amolitor (Jan 21, 2013)

Ah, ok. Well done for a "ok, wtf is there outside that we can shoot real quick" shot.


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## ceeboy14 (Jan 21, 2013)

That was pretty much it and a student picked my car. Sucking up for a grade, I suspect...


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## amolitor (Jan 21, 2013)

You could have used it as a teachable moment!

"Now, students, we see that the truck is a problem in the composition. With it gone, the composition will have balance and beauty."

"What shall we do, sensei?"

"We wait."


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## ceeboy14 (Jan 21, 2013)

We had 1 hour 50 minutes to shoot, process film, prep alt paper (while film washed), expose, develop, fix and wash.


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## amolitor (Jan 21, 2013)

Holy crap. That's... tight. Did you contact print wet, or somehow force dry the negative?


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## ceeboy14 (Jan 21, 2013)

I've done wet contacts when I did newspaper work, but with hand applied emulsions, in this case a 10% solution of silver nitrate, it ruins your negative so that wasn't an option... I had a hot air hand dryer mounted in the classroom because of all the wet hands. They may have used this. In some cases like with the ziatype process, the solution had to be slightly damp so we used a piece of clear acetate between the emulsion and the negative to protect the negative. 

The exposure time for this image was around 5 minutes, bright sun. One minute in the shade, 6 in direct sunlight...it is a slight dry-down process so it becomes a bit of a guessing game but I generally figure about a half stop less exposure to compensate. Development (Water, Soduim Thiosulphate and some sodium bicarb) is 15 min total and the wash another 15. That was done by me after they headed off to class (the wash). Hang up to dry and print finished, archival..oh, a little less than forever.


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## terri (Jan 22, 2013)

Ha!  You're a machine!   :thumbup:   Thanks for explaining the process.


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## ColRay (Feb 3, 2013)

Great result!!


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## ColRay (Feb 3, 2013)

I must post a couple of my salt prints


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## TATTRAT (Mar 16, 2013)

MINI for new MINI's, old Minis are Minis, sorry. .. .it's the MINIack in me showing.


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