Albert Galindo — Exposed & Processed
This version of the original in colour below is the one I opted for. The white edge of the original was much too white for me.
Photography is a technique that involves trial and error, exactitude, a follow-through pattern that can be repeated and the whimsy of that lovely word, latency.
Even until you bring back the picture you have just taken with a digital camera there is that very short moment when you don’t know. That is a short lapse that is almost latency. True latency was the time between exposure with a film camera (be it sensitized metal plate, glass plate, paper or celluloid) until it was processed (or to use a fine word of the 19thcentury “developed out”.
In a darkroom exposure of a negative with an enlarger onto photographic paper there is that magical moment when the exposed paper is placed in the developer tray. From a blank (the latent image) the image emerges.
For years we photographers who tested our exposures and shots with Polaroid backs on our cameras, we would peel them and quickly throw away the peeled negative. How were we to know then (before the advent of the home scanner) that there was an image imbedded in that dark peel.
With the Polaroids the image (a negative one) remained for a few days. Scanned and reversed in Photoshop the resulting image was (only recently can I say was!) an unpredictable surprise.
When Polaroid stopped making film for my medium format Mamiya RB-67 I bought the Fuji Instant Film. The image of the peel faded quickly. One of the methods was to quickly bring it to a waiting scanner and quickly scan it after first rubbing it to the glass.
A second method is to put the Fujiroid face down with the black back side up and to tape the edges with Gorilla Tape on a large dinner plate. With a spray bottle of half water half bleach I spray it and rub it with my fingers until all the black backing is gone. I remove the tape and place the negative in water and then I hang it to dry. When dry I scan it and reverse it in Photoshop. The resulting image I play around with contrast and levels.
And presto, always a surprise!
Originally published at blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com.
