Lumen Prints
For a while now some of my students have been making Lumen Prints. A former student, Andy Duncan, started making these prints after seeing some of Jerry Burchfield's work. Anyway, they're fairly simple. All you do is get some photo paper, place objects (plant matter seems to work fairly well) on the paper, expose the paper to light (sunlight works very well) for long periods of time (20 minutes to several days) and then fix the paper with traditional darkroom fixer or sodium thiosulfate. Depending on the paper, the length of time, the subject matter, the fixer, and even the chemical makeup of the water, you end up with an image of different colors, saturation, and values (even though the material is black-and-white paper and chemistry).
I got a wild hair the other day and decided to finally make some of my own. Jon came over and we gathered the supplies and made a few lumens in the backyard. Kevin and his friend Daylen even made one. Here are the results.
Exposing the Paper
Fixing the Print
Rinsing the Prints
Drying the Prints
A couple of finished prints
I got a wild hair the other day and decided to finally make some of my own. Jon came over and we gathered the supplies and made a few lumens in the backyard. Kevin and his friend Daylen even made one. Here are the results.
Exposing the Paper
Fixing the Print
Rinsing the Prints
Drying the Prints
A couple of finished prints
posted by Darren at
10:52 PM
5 Comments:
Those look really good. How long were the exposures and what paper did you use? I've got a couple new ideas I need to try out.
I took a bike ride up Logan Canyon a couple days ago and there are some plants with REALLY huge leaves—big enough to more than fill a 16x20 sheet of paper. I'm going back to collect some as soon as I have time.
The bright colors are from ilford warm tone paper. The exposures were only about 15-20 minutes. We also tried agfa portriga rapid (brown and gray) and oriental (really subtle browns and not a lot of contrast).
I had the same experience with the Oriental, though left longer (like the ones I was growing mold on) it can get quite nice.
You should post or email me some .jpgs of the portriga. That's one paper that I haven't had access to (read been too cheap to buy any on ebay) and it's the one paper I really want to try.
Oh, one more thing: how big were the prints and how did you digitize them?
It wasn't the older portriga, but portriga rapid (which isn't nearly as good). The prints I digitzed just scanned from 8x10 prints. I'll make bigger ones once I get some stuff figured out. I'll email you a portriga sample soon.
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