Gelatin silver or silver gelatin? Which comes first? Technically speaking, hand printing on baryta paper, or fiber-based paper of hefty weight, refers to an embedded process: shooting black and white film, developing it, and printing it in the darkroom. The latter process involves enlarging the negative, and burning the baryta with light. The paper is then tossed into three chemical baths. What follows is washing, toning and drying. Now you know why a gelatin silver print can fetch half a million dollars – if you’re Robert Mapplethorpe.

THE TECH

The baryta paper contains a suspension of the silver halides, or salts in a gelatin layer. An image printed in the darkroom ‘sits’ on four layers: Cotton-based paper, baryta, gelatin binder, and a protective gelatin overcoat. As the silver is suspended in gelatin, we’re talking about a gelatin silver process, though many prefer the denomination, ‘silver gelatin,’ as it sounds better.

After enlargement, focus, and contrast control, the paper travels to three trays of wet dipping containing chemicals: Developer (I like the Romanian word for it, revelator, or revealer, as that’s what this chemical does, reveal the hitherto embedded but hidden image on the paper), a stop bath, preventing the paper from further developing, and a fixer ensuring that the paper will not be sensitive to the light anymore.

Afterwards the baryta requires a long bath in running water, typically an hour. This ensures that the added chemicals in the paper are washed out completely, so no staining can occur at a later stage.

Toning the baryta in selenium adds longevity to the print, and a dash of heightened contrast. Sepia toning or a similar chemical treatment can give the gelatin silver print a preferred look, while also making sure that your work will last at least 100 years without any change: the black stays black, and the white stays white (or tobacco and blue color, if toning was used).

I like my own prints to display fat contrast. Not necessarily grainy or sharp, but fat.

My second print that I processed after returning to the darkroom — when all darkroom experience, only one-week 40 years ago, completely vanished — was based on a thin negative. This means that it took the light from the enlarger a very short time to burn the hell out of the paper, thus leaving behind a layer of black that’s hard to describe.

All I can think of is the fat color that the Renaissance masters used when they painted their chairoscuro masterpieces. I tried to take pictures of this print below, The Hand and the Hound, and found it impossible to render without a perfect reflection of my iPhone in it. The surface is like obsidian, filled with strange depth and magic.