Digital Negative Curves

Yesterday I was working diligently on creating my digital negatives. While I waited for them to print, I cleaned an area in the basement for me to start my work. I made a table space large enough to coat and dry close to 20 or 30 sheets of paper at a time. My next goal is to create a drying rack, or find something suitable for the job, so that I can dry the papers without any worry of fogging. I am enjoying the experimentation and would like to get to a point where I feel comfortable with the processes again. It has been at least two years, maybe three since I worked with kallitype, and know I will probably be looking at a few dead prints before I get anything of any value. However, my first attempt at creating a digital negative was not so good, but my attempts last night were more than satisfactory. I am yielding something that looks like it should print very well. I am growing very anxious to get out and start printing, but I have a lot of needs to meet before I get to a point to start with the chemical process. I may start printing some of these on traditional silver gelatin paper as a test, and see what they produce for results. Regardless, I am very intrigued to see what gets produced.

On another note, today I broke from the lesson plans provided to me by the teacher I am subbing for. I have been getting so frustrated with the book these kids are learning from, so I have now started on my own lessons in web design. I am now treading where this school has never tread before... Well, maybe not, but at least I can feel good about teaching these kids something that is a little more up to date, and I feel that I can accomplish something more than just guiding them along through the book. Maybe I am creating something that is not good for this class, but we will see what I can accomplish in a short manner of time. I have a few weeks left with these guys, so I would like to make the most of it. Anyway, Wish me luck.