Today I was reading a story in an old photo mag and came upon a brief reference to a darkroom technique called hot swabbing. I searched online for how its done with limited results, I guess it was very popular in W. Eugene Smith's darkroom (I am a huge fan of Mr. Smith). I did manage to find out a tiny bit about the technique, I guess it involves taking heated developer and swabbing (what do you use to swab with?) it onto the print during the development process.
I bought a laboratory style type hotplate to use with my wet plate photography so I might use it to try give this swabbing thing in the coming days. I guess what I will do is take a beaker of straight Dectol and just heat it up. I will develop the print normally then do some of that swabbing stuff to selected print sections and see how that goes. This new technique might be a added valuable printing tool, it can't hurt to try. It is pretty cool to be doing documentary photography on Tri-x, in the darkroom and be swabbing and bleaching the prints just like one of my idols did, Mr W. Eugene Smith!!
"Ain't Photography Grand!"
I bought a laboratory style type hotplate to use with my wet plate photography so I might use it to try give this swabbing thing in the coming days. I guess what I will do is take a beaker of straight Dectol and just heat it up. I will develop the print normally then do some of that swabbing stuff to selected print sections and see how that goes. This new technique might be a added valuable printing tool, it can't hurt to try. It is pretty cool to be doing documentary photography on Tri-x, in the darkroom and be swabbing and bleaching the prints just like one of my idols did, Mr W. Eugene Smith!!
"Ain't Photography Grand!"