Lith Prints -The Trial Run

Started Lith printing a couple of weeks back and it took a few runs to work out my darkroom work flow. Still far from perfect, it has been a rather enlightening journey, one that certainly was made more enjoyable with a glass of Vola Sangiovese from the local Trader Joes at times. It has been said Lith printing appeals to the artist in you, I can certainly attest to that as no two prints are alike. One notable point is the constant "agitation", a gentle tilting of the developer tray back and forth that is needed to get a good print. This is perhaps the most boring but necessary part of the Lith process in order to coax the image to come alive in your Lith bath. One may decide to steal a few winks while setting one's fingers to "automate" the motion, hopefully to be "awaken" at the right moment to snatch the print from the Lith developer.

Below are two Lith prints from my trial runs. The quick digital scans do not do them justice but you get the idea :)


"Printed from Kodak 125PX B&W neg of a red guitar still life, Oriental Seagull FB Warmtone paper, Moersch Lith Developer"

"Lith print, Two friends, Cinco de Mayo 2009, Oriental Seagull FB Warmtone paper, Moersch Lith Developer, Kodak 125PX film, this one could use a little dodging and burning I think"

A couple of advice I can pass on at this early stage:

• Prepare your Lith developer as per manufacturer's instructions with respect to dilutions, fresh batch for each run if possible. Otherwise pepper fogging will plaque one's prints and you will be sorry. If you find yourself wavering, remind yourself that darkroom photographic paper is more expensive than developer!



• Set up your darkroom work flow optimally so everything is in the right place, from exposing the film to tray development. This way objects are not in the way as time is the essence with Lith. The image takes anywhere from 5-30 minutes to develop then things progress rather quickly at that point. Developer dilution and recipe/temperature of bath are all variables that can affect developing time and the Lith effect. A chair in the darkroom is a must so you are comfortable.



• Get a Maglite with red filter or better still, I bought two sheets of Rubylith film on eBay and tape them over an LED torch light. That did the trick for me and I did not have fogging for the 15-30 minutes when the prints are in the developer and I had to check it from time to time.



• Good darkroom tongs so you can snatch the prints out of the developer at the right moment as it becomes critical at that stage. One second too many can alter the look of the print.



• Fresh Fixer solution is a must. Exhausted fixer will bleach the precious highlights out of the print to your horror.



• Fiber paper definitely prints better in Lith, Ilford RC works but the color lacks punch. Same can be said about bleaching an old B&W print and dipping it in Lith bath, the resulting Lith image is simply flat. Definitely no shortcut here.



• If your black and white negative has nice contrast, printing without contrast filter renders better Lith results. This is probably a matter of personal taste/opinion, depending the look and mood you are trying to achieve.



• This is a total darkroom development process much like traditional black and white wet room printing, unless one opts to take the short cut, bleach an old print and re-develop in Lith, that can be done in the daylight of course. I find the latter not very satisfying as the results are rather flat to say the least even if the paper has sufficient latitude for one to re-work.



• Can you Lith print from color slide and color negative? Definitely, be prepared for interesting wildly different end results. I am not sure if there is any hard and fast rule as I have not gone that far with experimentation but blue and green will print closer to black better than red which will print as shades of gray essentially.



• Most important of all, experiment, explore, have fun.

If you are interested in Lith printing, get this book by Tim Rudman, Lith guru The Master Photographer's Lith Printing Course: A Definitive Guide to Creative Lith Printing

Buy Moersch Lith Developer and other darkroom supplies here at Freestyle Photographic Supplies , definitely my favorite store!!

First run off the "printing press" - the Beseler 23C II Condenser Enlarger that is

Getting hooked on photography is a bit like getting bitten by the golf bug. First, you spent way too much money to get your hobby started. Then you get on this train and at every stop you talk yourself into buying an extra photography gear or two, some you need, some you don't but you want them because you might need them....It is happening all over again....I used to spend eight hours on the green on weekends when I was doing my corporate gig, now, I am spending that same many hours shooting, processing and printing in my makeshift darkroom creating my photography/art :).


"f/5.6, 6 seconds, Grade 2 paper. Plus X 125 film, Canoscan 8400T scan"
This is going to sound a little crazy. I already own an Omega B66 b&w enlarger which I bought for $40 off CL 2 years back and have printed very successfully from it (after tweaking it and adding ND filter to increase printing time). Unfortunately, I am in the Bay Area for a couple of months without it and desperately wanted to print (my creative pursuit). I checked out what is left in the rental darkroom scene from San Jose to San Francisco, and decided that they are too expensive since they go by the hour or a combination of one time membership fee plus a reduced hourly fee. I much prefer the comfort of printing at home in peace. So, you guess it, I bought another enlarger off CL again. This time it is the Beseler 23C II (the earlier version with the blue condenser enlarger head). Paid $120 for it. Besides the enlarger, there were a nice timer, a safe light, 4 negative carriers including 4.5x6 and 6x6 beg carriers, extra 38mm and 80mm enlarging lens, an almost new Saunders 4 blade 11x14 easel, 10+ stainless steel developing reels and tanks, and "several hundreds" of dollars of old fiber papers from 8x10 all the way to 16x20, still in their boxes and sealed. If 1/10th of the papers were any good, I would have recovered more than what I paid for, and the Beseler 23C II would be a bonus!! There was also a box of Zone VI Studios Grade 2 papers in the pile, I understand they were the standard until Multigrade papers came along.


"f/5.6, #3 filter, Ilford Multigrade warm tone paper, 8 seconds, SPX 200, Canoscan 8400T scan"
So I proceeded to set up my makeshift darkroom. There were two windows and a door that needed to be light tight. I taped the windows with black plastic sheeting from Home Depot and created a temporary workbench for the trays by putting a 2x4 plywood panel also from Home Depot over two plastic cabinets. Bought a fresh developer and stop bath from Kaufman's camera, and they "donated" a piece of perspex for my contact print (it worked). Printing was done after sundown (now you see why I wish the sun would set sooner so I get a few extra hours of printing at night). After some experimenting, I was able to settle into the printing routine.
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A few notes:
I used RC paper for contact print, at 3-5 sec increments, depending on the tone/contrast
After looking at the contact print, I decided to test print an image I shot at the recent Cinco de Mayo parade in San Jose on Zone VI Studio Grade 2. There was more contrast on the contact print than I wanted so I thought printing on Grade 2 paper would be a good compromise (I am still waiting for my filter pack to arrive). See the first image above of the young boy dressed in cowboy attire getting ready for the parade...the old Zone VI Grade 2 fiber paper probably gave the print its warm and aged look.....still experimenting....

The daisy shot (above) on the other hand was printed on regular Multigrade Fiber Paper with a #3 filter. When I looked at the contact print, it had nice shadows and highlights (the #3 filter was the only filter that came with the enlarger). I like the result, particularly the grain, which was very visible when enlarging to 11x14. I might add this was shot with Ilford Harman Infrared SPX200 (with orange filter). It was the first time I used Ilford SPX 200 and I love it. It has a nice soft tonal range and the highlights are a touch ghost white while the shadows are soft black, nice tonal range overall. Looking at how my scenics and still life turned out, I will definitely be shooting a lot more of the Ilford Infrared SPX 200 film.

The kids were simply adorable in their cowboy attire !!

Cinco de Mayo celebration - downtown San Jose, May 03 2009

I had not made up my mind what I was going to do when I headed out in my car this past Sunday. It was raining, though not very hard. I looked to the eastern sky and saw the sun was trying to break out from behind the early morning rain clouds. I was on 17W in the direction of Santa Cruz and had the idea that I would wait for the right moment and shoot the morning scenery as the light breaks and the rains stop with the mist still in the air. However, that never did work out. I surveyed the area I had in mind and decided that it would not be much of a shot. It was one of those mornings...I was searching for photo ops and really did not have any idea where I would find one - the elusive photo op :(. Not a good sign I was thinking to myself.

"Young cowboy and his craft"
I headed back into San Jose, decided perhaps I might find something downtown. San Jose is a rather interesting town with numerous century old buildings. I drove around the city square and was just about to give up to head to Trader Joes for my weekly produce shopping when I heard neighing horses to my left - Ah...a group of horsemen and their families had gathered with their horse carriages in the city parking lot a block from St James Park. Downtown San Jose is at the heart of Silicon Valley and so the horses were quite a sight to see. I parked my car quickly, grabbed both my cameras and sprinted across to where the small crowd had gathered. I had no clue what it was all about. In my mind, I had an image of a horse auction of some sorts, like the one one sees in the Western movies...I was told there would be a Cinco de Mayo celebration that morning and they were getting ready for the parade. The kids were all dressed up and looked so adorable in their cowboy attires. Some were sitting on the ponnies...I asked if I could take some pictures and many quickly obliged and gave me their email addresses to send them some pictures - Sometimes it is funny how things turn out..


"his eyes...there is something about them"
Above is one of my favorite shots (see more in my Smugmug gallery)....There was something about his eyes..... They remind me very much of the boy in the movie I Am David. There was definitely more behind that pair of eyes....I wish I know what they were.....

"I thought he looked rather like Paul Newman, this could have come from a movie..the ride along Pacific Coast Highway 1 in Malibu :)"
You can see more of my Cinco de Mayo photos by visiting my Smugmug gallery. The link is Cinco de Mayo 2009, San Jose