Process — 001
Unit 4 · every print · no exceptions
Six steps, in order, every time.
None of the six is difficult on its own. The order is the whole skill: each step forgives a small mistake made in the one before it, and forgives nothing at all about the one after. What follows is exactly what happens to your negative, in the order it happens.
Fixed
Six steps · no substitutions · no shortcuts
Variable
Time, temperature, and how long you wait to decide
Never
Two prints from the same sitting on the same day
The six — 002
Load · expose · develop · stop · fix · wash
01
In the dark
Load
The negative goes into the carrier blind, by feel. Dust is the enemy and dust always wins a little.
02
12s at f/8
Expose
Twelve seconds through a 55Y 40M pack. The test strip already told us this an hour ago.
03
90 seconds
Develop
Ninety seconds face down. The image arrives all at once and never stops being strange.
04
10 seconds
Stop
Ten seconds. The moment you decide it is finished is the only irreversible one in the room.
05
5 minutes
Fix
Five minutes. This is the step that makes it last a hundred years instead of five.
06
40 minutes
Wash
Forty minutes of running water. Nobody watches this part. It matters more than the rest.
The baths — 003
Three trays · left to right · never back
Colour is a decision made after the picture.
Untoned — what the paper does on its own
Cool — the shadows move first, everything else follows
Warm — pulled back and brought up gold
First
Plus ten cyan, three minutes at 35°C, agitated by hand
Then
Plus ten yellow, second pass, wash for a full hour
Why
It moves the blacks a long time before it moves anything else
Next — 004
Bring a negative, or bring a plan
Nothing here is printed the same day it is made.
Write to the studio
If you already have negatives, say what film and what size. If you do not, say what the picture is meant to do.
