Shooting Darkroom Paper In-Camera – a Beginner’s Guide – By Aloy Anderson
In this age of digital photography where literally everything is automated, analog and alternative processes are making a strong come back. The skill it takes to make the “perfect” print and the random unpredictable beauty they can render has become an obsession for many artists, including myself.
After shooting and developing film for years I needed a new challenge and started experimenting with in-camera cyanotypes getting great and surreal results, but the 20 minute to an hour exposures plus being only sensitive to ultraviolet light was too limiting for me. Looking for another light sensitive material to try in camera I stumbled on others experimenting with darkroom paper. I was intrigued because it was much faster than cyanotype at 6 ISO. Don’t laugh, 6 is extra slow but outdoors in bright sun it can be handheld at 1/60 sec f5.6. I dove in feet first and bought a ten pack of 8×10 Ilford Multigrade pearl from my local photo shop which all the images in this review were shot on.
