More Lumen

I've been napping most of the day. I didn't sleep in the emergency room last night, so I felt extremely tired when I arrived home. Luckily there was very little traffic on the 91 freeway heading west. Ordinarily, at 5:30 a.m., it would be a crush, but the pandemic has left many people working at home or out of work. Traffic was light, although the cars that were out there were driving crazily. 

After a morning nap I ate, then went and took an afternoon nap. My pain is still not gone, but now, I feel it must be a muscle strain. I especially feel it when I climb out of bed. 

Well, this afternoon, I decided I wanted to play with Lumen prints again. I had a loaded film holder and framed a composition outside in the afternoon light. I thought it was photo paper but then, to my chagrin, found it was film. Initially I was a little irritate, but then I thought, I wanted to run that experiment too, to see if Lumen prints work with film. It didn't look promising, the film did not look as if it had an imprinted image. For something as sensitive as film, one would think it would. Here is how the original came out:

But, you can start to see some details. I should have scanned it again, but I didn't, I put it away and worked with this image. It took some processing, and on my Mac, I have only a rudimentary image processing software program. But I worked on it and obtained this:

So something is obtain, it does work, but is is not as successful as with photo paper. Why would that be? I thought it would be more sensitive, but once again, this is not chemical development, this is just blasting an emulsion with light for 30 minutes or more, with an aperture of f5.6. So at least something was obtained.

Once I had scanned it, I knew I had to repeat the same procedure with photo paper, so I did. I looked for my other holder that had the paper loaded, then went outside and didn't move the camera at all, just exposed another 30 minutes, same settings. I obtained these two, the original (milk of magnesia) and the inverted image.

These were better, but also, so, so grainy. I suspect the exposure was too low. The afternoon sunlight was declining, this is no longer blast-furnace sunny 16 light, this light is about one and a half to two stops lower in intensity than during the apex of the afternoon. But, I got this image. It is more even, which helps. The composition is not good, I know, but I am experimenting, and I had to work with the light that was fading. 

I still want to try an 8x10 Lumen Print some day. I doubt I will be able to afford a proper 8x10 camera anytime soon, although the Intrepid Mark II is my best bet. That would be about $600-$700 new, shipped from England. I would then need a lens, too. I'll think about it, I might go ahead and spring for it sooner than I know, although I have had my eye on a used Tachihara for a few months now.

Currently I have one last Lumen print exposing outside. It is 6:07 p.m., and I will give it until 6:15 p.m., then bring it in for a total exposure of about 40 minutes. Then, I want to take an afternoon walk. So, update soon.