Red Pepper

left the house without a camera today so late night food shot will have to do. A bit of a pain to grill and skin but so much nicer when you make the effort.

Spent most of today back in the darkroom getting used to using paper that is not Ilford Multigrade. I made 2 important discoveries today.

Firstly, when the instructions say that you are not to replenish your developer but should make a whole new batch, they really mean it. One of the heating elements in the darkroom bench has gone and subsequently in this weather I can't keep the chemical trays at 20°. Yesterday I was adding hot water to it to keep it warm but this also dilutes the developer more and more each time. Today I tried adding half a litre of warm mixed developer to the tray to bring the temperature back up and the first print I did in it went a horrible brown colour! That will be the staining they were talking about in the instructions then :(

Secondly, when reading about toning prints I have been led to believe that weaker solutions just make the toning process take longer. Short on cash but with plenty of time to kill I diluted selenium 1+9 every time I have used it. Today I tried 1+4. The results were astoundingly different. After about 3 minutes my prints had taken on a warm glow and needed to be quickly removed, one got left a bit too long and has turned into a strange lilac-o-type thing. In future I will be sticking to stronger solutions I think.