Making Opalotypes: Part 1 -- The Test Run

For my company's annual employee appreciation party, I was asked to be the volunteer photographer. I accepted and also volunteered to do some alternative process photographs for some raffle winners. I've been looking for a reason to do some alternative photography, so I jumped on this one and decided to make opalotypes.

An opaoltype is a photographic print on milk glass. Over the coming weeks as I make these prints, I'll share the process and results. The first step was to, in a controlled environment, use the camera, lights, and film I would use on the boat for some test shots. Even at 400 ISO, the exposures were very long for pet photography. Think 1/4 second long, even wide open. I used a two-light setup (even though I only had one light on the boat, and at that only for part of the time -- more on that mess when we get to that entry.)

I selected my Rolleiflex Old Standard with Zeiss 3.8 tessar lens. This lens renders exceedingly well. For improved shutter speeds, I decided to push the film (I selected Ilford's HP5+) to 800 ISO, one stop, and reduce my shutter speed slightly.

However, I didn't have any developers that would work for pushing HP5+, so I ordered some Ilfosol-3. I took a test roll with the same lighting and developing conditions as I would use at the real event. MY dogs cooperated very well (they're champs) and let me take their pictures even though they hate being posed for photos. 







Next time: The boat photos.