Some explanation on "Sabattier"
After some requests on the subject of my "Sabattier" Portfolio, asking how this works and in how far it is deferring from the "Solarization" Technique, I want to get a few things straight so that everybody who is interested in this process or even wants to try it out knows what it is all about. First, I would like to clarify that none of what I am showing in the portfolio has got anything to do with "Solarization". The effect I am using is often mistakingly referred to as solarization, like for instance in the english article on Wikipedia, whereas the results of both processes are very different.
When solarizing a shot, the film is ghastly overexposed (with exposure times exceeding minutes or even hours in full sunlight), resulting in an image featuring a sun that appears as a black line in the sky (see here).
The "Sabattier Effect" however is a very different matter: The film is exposed in quite a usual fashion (I overexpose 2 to 3 stops at night for better contrast), then, in the darkroom, developed partially before being taken out of the chemicals, exposed to light for a very brief amount of time, to be fully processed afterwards. This way, areas that weren't affected by the first development get exposed when the film is taken out, leading to overexposure in these areas. The areas that have already developed beforehand stay somewhat unaffected. As a result you get a partially reversed negative that translates afterwards into these wonderful prints I am showing you on here. So that's it, I hope it helps!
