PHOTOGRAPHY 



465 



oxalate solution, the other empty, each dishful 

 of developer being poured into bottle number 

 two after use instead of back into the fresh 

 stock. Then, when the second bottle is full, the 

 reverse action takes place, until the developer is 

 exhausted. Both these methods will result in 

 cleaner and more brilliant prints, while if the 

 oxalate is further kept in the dark its keeping 

 qualities will be still further augmented. 



Improving Bromide Prints 



While it is generally agreed that a pale, weak 

 bromide print or enlargement is not suitable for 

 toning by the sepia redevelopers, it is not so 

 widely known or appreciated that a good strong 

 print of a bad color may be toned almost, if not 

 quite, as satisfactorily as if the original color 

 were a good one, and that prints on stale paper 

 which has deteriorated so much as to be useless 

 for black tones may be made, and then being 

 toned with sulphide give quite agreeable 

 prints. It has been pointed out in our columns 

 not only the great improvement that can be 

 effected by toning, but that a poor black print 

 may be converted into a good black print by a 

 parallel method. The print, after thorough 

 fixing and washing, its silver image converted 

 into silver ferrocyanide by the ferricyanide 

 bromide bleaching solution, is then thoroughly 

 washed and redeveloped with a developer com- 

 posed of: 



Metol 45 grains. 



Sodium sulphite (cryst.) 130 . " 



Sodium carbonate (cryst.) 270 " 



Water to 10 ounces. 



No bromide must be used in this developer, 

 whose constitution is important if good black 

 tones are to be obtained. The print, after 

 development, does not require fixing; it is just 

 washed and dried. Such a process is poor 

 economy in the case of little prints, but with 

 enlargements it may mean turning a rusty and 

 altogether unsatisfactory photograph into a 

 good one. 



Record-Making Under Difficulties 



I have just finished developing a big batch of 

 underexposed plates. I admit they oughtn't 

 to have been underexposed — but what is one 

 to do when the light persistently remains bad, 

 and the subject equally persistently remains 

 moving ? There are times when a poorish result 

 is better than none at all, and this was one of 

 those times. The photographs are, in fact, 

 records of an incident which had to be recorded. 

 Under few circumstances indeed (I am inclined 

 to write, under no circumstances at all) is under- 

 exposure defensible in pictorial work pure and 

 simple. But in record work, such as this was, 

 one has to make the best of a bad job often 



enough. I want to tell you how I went to work 

 to make the best of this particular bad job. 



As a rule I develop that genus of photographs 

 known popularly as the "snap-shot" (a word 

 which, alas, generally embraces underexposure 

 in its meaning!) by means of dilute Pyro Metol. 

 Note, please, that I would like the accent laid 

 on the "dilute." Pyro soda is good, too — but 

 the main point is the diluteness. That is to say, 

 the developer must be restrained, not with 

 bromide, but with water; restrained in the 

 speed of its action all over the plate, not in the 

 degree of its action on any special parts of the 

 plate. For if there is one bugbear to be dreaded 

 in the typical "snap-shot," it is hardness (i.e., 

 extreme contrast, causing the high lights to be 

 very, very white and the shadows to be very, 

 very black.) Well, the only remedy for hardness 

 is to use a developer which tends to give softness. 

 A truism? Yes. But it is a truism on which 

 plenty of habitual snap-shotters would do well 

 to ponder. "I use any developer which comes 

 handy," one of the tribe once boasted to me. I 

 invited him to snap two plates, and then 

 develop one with full-strength Hydrokinone and 

 the other with dilute Pyro Metol, and see 

 whether he still thought that, as he had said, 

 "you can subsequently get any sort of contrast 

 you like by using the right grade of gaslight 

 paper in printing. Development doesn't mat- 

 ter .. . " and so forth. Whether he tried 

 my recommended experiment I don't know. If 

 he did, I doubt if he profited by it; for he was 

 one of those people who are always in a hurry. 

 And that is the unpardonable fault in developing 

 snap-shots. An underexposed plate simply 

 won't be hurried. Softness and detail are two 

 qualities which never go hand in hand with 

 haste, and the sooner the snap-shotter grasps 

 this great truth, the better for his work. 



A good many of my set of underexposures I 

 developed with dilute Pyro Metol, as I say. 

 But certain of them, which I knew to be, on the 

 whole, even more underexposed than the others, 

 I treated with Glycin. Glycin, as you probably 

 know, is a favorite for stand development. I 

 needn't here enter into the reasons why this is 

 so; nor need I give you a formula, as plenty 

 have appeared in these pages. Anyhow, those 

 extra underexposed, plates I developed with 

 stand development, and next time you have any 

 difficulty in getting detail and softness in snap- 

 shots, I'd like you to try that too. If there is 

 any detail to be had, you may be sure Glycin, 

 acting slowly, will coax it out. I have carefully 

 compared the negatives I developed with Glycin 

 and those I developed with Pyro Metol, and the 

 Glycin ones are unmistakably superior. There 

 is a coarseness about the Pyro Metol negatives, 

 a sort of forced look, which is absent in the 



