Last Sunday outing to a cement factory ....

[scootermm]

last sunday I had some spare time to spend outside shooting. Woke up way past my normal shooting time. Usually I try and get up before sunrise to enjoy the early morning light, but my eyelids were entirely too heavy sunday morning. so I enjoyed the early morning light from the nice big windows of my folks upstairs guest bedroom on a wonderfully sunny and blue lit lake.

not quite the same but nonetheless enjoyed it.

I strolled out of bed around mid morning and loaded film into my 7x17 holders. Id sadly forgotten to bring my 8x10 holders and film so stuck to the 7x17.

I drove over to the old abandoned Longhorn Cement Factory on Wurzbach Parkway just northeast of San Antonio. Id be lying if I said I didnt see the HUGELY beligerent signs ready "NO TRESPASSING". Although I dont understand this word ?trespassing? that only pertains to deliquent highschool kids with too much time on their hands and too many cans of spraypaint right? I mean Im just a well meaning photographer with a large cumbersome camera who loves these sorts of locales.
I thought Id take the chance. usually Im big on trying my best to abide by these rules, to not trespass and be a good law abiding citizen. but places like this are way too seductive to pass up. so I resigned to be a lawbreaking rebel and climb the barb wired fence. Actually, there was no barbwire, and for that matter there wasnt even a fence. You can just walk right into this place, no fences, nothing. If thats not a welcome invitation I dont know what is.

I set my backpack and tripod down inside one of the buildings and began walking around seeing what if anything would resonate. My dog loved the walking around part, I on the other hand loved it but managed to expel every bit of water I had in my body, little bit steamy when its a Texas July day. But I braved it and just used the wonderful towel and bottle of water.

I managed to shoot 8 negatives and printed 4 of them last night. Thought about putting them in the critique gallery but I dont like when theres more than one image from the same person. So I thought Id ramble on and create a semi useless thread in the ULF forum and hopefully get some peoples thoughts on these.

I used Arches Platine paper. Ive pretty some 8x10s with it once before but thought Id try out some 7x17 negs on it to see how I like it.
All four of these are printed on platine, palladium, with Na2, developed in Pot. Oxalate at 120degrees. Would love to hear what people think of them both as a group or as individual images.

[colrehogan]

I wish I had the guts to go into places like that by myself. There's actually a lot of them not far from the Arch (across the river in East St. Louis) that would be neat to photograph, but you need a crew of police with you at least. I'd have to say that I like number 4 the best, but they do work well as a series.

Can you tell me how you are coating the Arches Platine? I mean, are you humidifying, letting it air dry for some period of time and/or are you double coating the paper? I'm just wondering as I'm still struggling a bit with this paper.

[TheFlyingCamera]

Matt- does warming up the PoTox make that muc of a difference? I usually print with it at room temperature, and have been for the most part happy with my results. What would printing it warm do for me that it isn't doing at room temperature?

[reellis67]

The fourth one works the most for me - it's the diagonal line I think that does it. Looks like a great place to photograph. Nice prints.

- Randy

[Markok765]

I like the first ones feeling of emptiness.

[Robert Hall]

You can heat up the developer to near 200F for a warmer effect. If you do a straight pd print in very hot developer, they are quite brown.

Very nice work Matt

[SteveH]

Very cool photos Matt. There is an old vinyl coating factory here that is slated to become lux condos (Go figure....$800k condos in a toxic waste site...). Regardless, I requested to photograph the building before it is to be gutted. I have one permit, working on another....

[roteague]

Great images Matt, and great use of the panoramic format. Thanks for sharing. These images are truly fantastic.

[wfwhitaker]

...does warming up the PoTox make that muc of a difference? I usually print with it at room temperature, and have been for the most part happy with my results. What would printing it warm do for me that it isn't doing at room temperature?

Let me preface this by saying that I know just enough about this to be dangerous! When I took Kerik's workshop we tried warming the developer to 140F. The result was pretty dramatic: strong sepia with rich brown tones. It seemed intuitive: warm = warm. Not for all subjects, but it worked well with the image from that session which is my homepage photo.

[scootermm]

Can you tell me how you are coating the Arches Platine? I mean, are you humidifying, letting it air dry for some period of time and/or are you double coating the paper? I'm just wondering as I'm still struggling a bit with this paper.

Diane, not coating anyway differently to be honest. for these I used 1.2ml of Ferric Oxalate, 1.2ml Palladium, 1 drop of 10% Na2. single coated with a 4" richeson 9010. No humidifying or anything special. Although texas is a high humidity locale. so maybe thats good enough to keep it humid.
really it seemed to coat pretty darn well for me.