As mentioned in a former post (or thè former one probably) coating of the washi paper is quite the challenge. Pre-dampening the paper helped a lot. By this I mean floating the sheet of paper, to-be-coating side down, over a pan of steamy water. Not too long or, in the case of too long, leave it to dry a little longer to prevent fogging issues later on. And I add two drops of 50% mixture of Tween 20 to the mix. Prevents the paper from absorbing the mixture too fast and helps spreading the emulsion.
The Washi paper is very beautiful. Needs more density and contrast in the negatives than when using Hähnemuhle Platinum Rag (at least to my brief experience). If I can name a minor disadvantage to this Washi paper, which is all too understandable using this type of paper I suppose, the longer it stays wet, the more fibers of the paper come loose (while remaining attached to the sheet) and when it dries in the end, the fibers dry in another direction than when they were when being exposed. This results in a slight decline of detail. When holding the sheet into the light you can see it’s all there, all the little nuances but because of the fibers having changed its position on top of the paper it looses a tad of its detail when looking on top of it.
I realize it might sound vague; I hope it does makes sense 🙂 So far I have only made prints on 8×10″ sheets. For the upcoming exhibition they are going to be bigger; 11×14″, and this will be a lot less apparent I presume.
Anyway, this sure if fun and I am so so happy to finally work with the Process of Processes! It is so gorgeous. The video below was one of the motivations getting a Monochrom so to be able to make platinum palladium prints; when you put your mind to it… miracles do happen!
Photography Contrastique - Alternative Photographic Processes 