Solargraphs in this month's New Scientist

[crispinuk]

A friend of mine has tipped me off about an article in this month's New Scientist on Justin Quinnell's solargraphs.
Just passing on the tip:

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/...ar-of-sun.html.

Crispin

[Pete H]

How wonderful. I might have to try that.

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Really interesting: he used the photo paper as a very slow printing-out paper. That explains the colours.

[frotog]

Interesting...same view of the Clifton suspension bridge as one afforded by William West's 175 year old camera obscura housed in an abandoned mill.

[astrobeck]

Another great site with Solargraphs...
http://www.solargraphy.com/

[Vaughn]

His negatives were scanned immeadiately after taking them out of the pinhole cameras...and I assume with the intensity of the light of the scanner on the undeveloped photopaper, he can only scan them once. Probably too much fogging to use them for anything else after scanning. So the question is...does this thread actually belong on the hybrid site?

Vaughn

[ChrisC]

I was reading about this the other day. I still can't get my head around colour images being burnt onto black and white photographic paper. I guess I'm going to have to try this for myself and see what happens. Should be most interesting.

[crispinuk]

Originally Posted by Vaughn

So the question is...does this thread actually belong on the hybrid site?

Vaughn

I don't think so, the article is about solargraphs and of those who have replied to the original post, most have expressed interest and some have stated they might have a go themselves. Mr Quinell happened to use a scanner, that doesn't invalidate all the skill and knowledge that went into getting the solargraph onto the photopaper in the first place. Perhaps you could kick off with the first suggestion as to how the image could be made permanent using purely chemical processes ?

[Vaughn]

Originally Posted by crispinuk

I don't think so, the article is about solargraphs and of those who have replied to the original post, most have expressed interest and some have stated they might have a go themselves. Mr Quinell happened to use a scanner, that doesn't invalidate all the skill and knowledge that went into getting the solargraph onto the photopaper in the first place. Perhaps you could kick off with the first suggestion as to how the image could be made permanent using purely chemical processes ?

Sure...since the problem with developing and fixing the image is that massive amount of exposure the paper got, it is just a matter of applying a dilute developer...perhaps 20 to 25 molecules of developer per square inch of paper...

My post was all in fun, but it is a hybrid process by necessity. The result on paper is a negative -- with lots of orangy colors. It is scanned and reversed in PhotoShop, or other applications, to be a positive color image -- thus the orange becomes cyan, dark becomes light. So while it is a hybrid process, it is worthy of making an exception for it. (and I just realized that one might be able to contact print the original onto photo paper, B&W or color, and make it a fully analog process)

It does appear that the original can be saved for re-scanning later.

Vaughn

[Ecoleica]

i stumbled across solargraphs a couple of weeks ago, so i made some cameras to have a go. here is my first attempt which was exposed for around three days