New year, new discoveries

Last year, we had multiple trees die due to drought conditions in our area. It was the largest number of trees we ever lost at one time. We cut up the felled trees and saved the best pieces for our son, who likes to work with wood. While waiting for the wood to season, our sausage-like cat seems to enjoy jumping between these two logs -- it is his main workout for the day.

The photograph of the tree rings was made using the Rolleiflex SL66 and the 80 mm lens on a chunk of Kodak Tri-X film. Conventional silver halide based photography, in other words. 

Lately, I've been playing around with something called Pfeiffer's chromatography in which a piece of filter paper is imbibed with a solution of silver nitrate and allowed to dry in the dark. Next, a soil sample that has been dissolved in base is applied to the center of the paper. Capillary action transports material from the center to the outer part of the paper over time (an hour or so). Some components do not interact with the paper and are transported to its outer edge, while other materials are more strongly retained near the center. The silver ions added during the first step may react with certain components of the soil and will change color upon exposure to light (development). The resulting chromatogram is used by agricultural scientists to qualitatively assess the conditions of soil samples.

That is not my particular interest, though. To me, this is a kind of camera-less photography, based on the same photochemical properties of silver salts as film is. The paper is not fixed, so I make a photographic record and store the originals in the dark. In addition to the similar chemistries, there is an obvious parallel between tree growth rings and chromatography rings, but it remains to be seen what else I will learn from these investigations. 

I hope the new year is filled with new discoveries for you as well.