Breakthrough - I hope

For days I've been failing to make a print from the stills. Today I dozed until lunchtime and contemplated how I would resolve this problem. The rest served me well.

I have resolved to make prints using liquid light. It was kind of obvious. I'd brought a bottle with me for the purpose, I'd made a darkroom and I even got chemicals from Ernest. Why I had decided against this process I do not know, maybe it was some sort of self sabotage.

Tomorrow I will get up early, get protective gloves so I don't poison myself and thick black bags so that I can block out the window and use the whole room to coat the paper. Then it will be a case of making 140 prints. Exposure is 6 seconds, developing, about 3 minutes and fix for another 2 mins or so. I have resolved not to rinse them and accept the consequences (stickiness and smudging, so far it is not a problem).

Technically I can make 10 prints in one hour, so that's two lots of 7 hours.

Coating the paper and waiting for it to dry is a whole other problem. It takes about 1.5mins to do each side then hang up so I have to leave 3minutes. That's 20 per hour so it will take 7 hours. And then a few hours to dry. Then coating it with liquid light - about 30 seconds but again quite some time to dry. It's cold here, I have an unreliable fan heater which should speed up the process.

Show the schedule:

Thursday 13th

2am write schedule
2.30am go to bed

Friday 14th (thankfully not 13th)

8am wake up, shower
8.30am go to Prisma (have a list)
9.30am return and coat the paper with PVA solution
12.30am break
1pm make room dark
1.30pm continue to coat paper with PVA solution
5.30pm break
6pm start to coat with liquid light
11pm finish

Saturday 15th

8am wake, shower
8.30pm start to make prints
12.30pm break
1pm continue making prints
6pm break
6.30pm coat remainder of sheets with liquid light

interruption - one slight problem I just counted the paper and there are 87 sheets left

Back to the drawing board.

I think I will have to sleep on it.