German contact printing frames

Here is picture of a contact printing frame, a German one!

I bought a box load of these yesterday, a whole set, and they range in size from this "Liliput 1" right up to "Everest 2" (35mm to 16"x20"). To use it for its intended purpose, you go into a darkroom and insert a negative and a piece of photographic paper into the frame, then turn the light on for a few moments. You then develop the photographic paper to get your contact print.

These frames are beautifully made with dovetail joints and hinged backs, and they're glazed! I will have to add some colour to each frame, perhaps a matte, but I think they will look great.

Trickster framed

I've had another framing session and used the last of my tintype frames on three photographs.

However, I'm very excited because I've found and bought some old German contact printing frames, and I can't wait to change their use and get my photographs in them.

Watch this space.......

Animal print framed

I'm having some matte's cut by my local framer to fit my old frames, he's charging me 5 euros for each one. I remember buying a matte cutter by mail order, many years ago. The tool consisted of a dull craft blade that slotted into a long metal ruler and came with one sheet of instructions, in French. The contraption made no sense at all to me and it went the way of all unwanted 'buys', on Ebay.

The matte's being made have off-set square apertures and will fit rectangular frames, but in the meantime, I'm using the few square frames I have. This one is a very plain black frame that originally had a white matte. The white matte didn't work on this image, and only looked right with a few photographs, notably black and white. So I've stained the matte with cold tea, just enough to dull it down a touch.