Aurhodiotype Aristicatastrophe
Monday morning over my coffee, I watched the sky to ensure no clouds would move in to block UV. Satisfied I would have sun, I carefully tore in half a 22x30 inch sheet of 90# Fabriano Artistico. I mixed together 24 drops of 10% rhodium, 17 drops of 10% gold and 41 of AFFO-C(4:1%) -- a low contrast solution.
I used my 4" Richeson 9010 to spread the sensitizer across the paper. I had brushed perhaps 2/3 out when I observed several splotches caused by irregularities in the paper's finish. This is never anything you want to observe in paper, particularly not after you purchased 15 sheets. I quickly decided to finish the coating, and to use the prepared paper as a test.
The negative printed out as expected; rather slow, significantly slower than pure gold, platinum, or palladium. However, a rich image printed out fully. Still a little contrastier than I wanted; I imagine I would need to use AFFO-C(3:1%) for what amounted to a 3:2 ratio of rhodium to gold. The splotches resolved in the final print as what looked like clumps of paper fiber. I wondered whether I had not brushed too vigorously such that the bristles scratched the paper surface.
I examined the second half of the same sheet. Held up to a bright light, the paper looks rather like the surface of the sun viewed on a sheet of flashed opal connected to a telescope; it has that same grainy irregularlity. I could discern one or two areas that were clear white, something like sun spots but much lighter than the surrounding grain rather than much darker. I decided to set that 15x22 sheeet aside for testing.
I took great care with the second 22x30" sheet of Fabriano Artistico. First I examined it in a bright light for any irregularities. Seeing none, I cut the paper, face up, instead of tearing it while holding it down firmly on the edge of a table top. I prepared a sensitizer of 20 drops of gold and 21 of rhodium (just to make the print more rhodium than gold) with 41 drops of AFFO-C(4:1%). I reasoned that less rhodium would result in lower contrast. I was right. I brushed that sensitizer onto the sheet very carefully, gently, floating the brush above the paper. After the coating dried I made my print. It was superb1 Breathtaking! A true Keatsian thing of beauty. A joy forever. It was split toned -- the left side had a blue cast and the right side a red cast. The colors were subtle, with gray interplaying, fading in and out of the blue and the red. The subject? A rather lovely young friend wearing a black cocktail dress, with lace shoulders and throat, the hem falling to just above her knees, her legs not bare but covered with black stockings. Ankle boots complete the outfit. She holds with her left hand an uprooted hyacinth, her right hand curved hieratically beneath the dangling roots. The background is simply a smooth stone wall and rather splotchy stone floor.
I immersed the print in cold water to clear without darkening. The second bath was a 3% bath in muriatic acid. That was my first mistake. It seemed innocuous as there was at first no apparent damage. After 15 minutes in the acid, I washed the print for 30 minutes in running water. As the print nearly dried I noticed a slight solarization in the darkest areas of the subject's black dress. Now, I should have remembered two weeks ago solarizing a rhoidum-gold print by immersing it in excessively strong muriatic acid. Horrified, I placed the print in a strong bath of chlorox bleach. I had no logical reason for so doing. knowing that bleach can lighten an iron based print I hoped it would lighten the solarization. And it did, just a little but enough. After I poured off the bleach, I turned on cold water and let it run from my bathtub faucet into the tray with the paper. When I returned 30 minutes later I was stunned. The paper had shifted in the tray and the stream of water had struck the upper area of the image. The force of the water had rubbed away a circular section of the image
I consoled myself with the reassurance that I could matte the print to hide the splotch at the top of the image. I decided that if I soaked the print in a good bath of gelatin and pickling alum it might prevent a return of the solarization on dry down. I had the paper face up in the tray so that it would not be damaged by abrasion when I poured in the gelatin. As I did so a glob of gelatin slid across the surface of the print and came to rest next to the model's right leg. I rocked the tray to move the glob away. It slid off, taking a patch of the emulsion with it. The print was ruined.
Tomorrow a cold front is moving in from the north and we expect mostly overcast skies. Wednesday however I expect to reprint. I shall end up lavishing about 3 ml each of rhodium and of gold. I think, too, that I shall mix up 10ml of ammonium ferric oxalate with 3 drops of 1% C -- the lowest contrast AFFO that will induce reduction of gold to its elemental (image-forming) state.
