Vidar's Sunshine Calotype

I'll always remember making this calotype because of something funny that happened. I'd made 3 calotypes earlier in the day, and each time the sun clouded over or it rained on me ( of course, it was sunny between the times I was making photographs! ). I was leaving the Norsk Folkemuseum for the day when I bumped into another member of our little calotype group, Vidar. Vidar was arriving with his camera and said he was going to make another calotype. I said I thought the sunlight was done, and he said, just watch: when he opens his tripod it will make the sun come out again :) So I turned around and went back to this picturesque corner of "old town" that had caught my eye, and Vidar went off to make his calotype. Sure enough, I set up the camera and then the sun came out and stayed out for the whole exposure, like magic! So this photograph was possible because of Vidar's magic tripod ( not to mention, my camera was mounted on another tripod that he generously loaned me for our time in Oslo).

The building on the left in this scene ( on the right side of the negative above ) is a half-timbered house that was built in the 1600s by Federik Brun, a bookbinder. After multiple disastrous fires, King Chrisitan IV issued an edict that all houses must be made from brick or stone. A less expensive alternative was to fill brickwork in the space between timbers, or "half-timbered", and still resistant to fire. This is Brun's actual house; it was relocated here to the museum.

I will try to remember this story correctly: Brun lived with his wife and a large household of children, housemaids and an apprentice bookbinder. When he passed away, his elderly wife married the much younger apprentice and kept the bookbinding business running... and when the wife passed away, the now older apprentice then married a much younger housemaid and they kept the business running. When the old apprentice passed away, his now older wife married his much younger apprentice, and this pattern continued for several generations! This pattern seems astonishing but when you read about how they lived it is more understandable.

Trutat variant of a Pélegry calotype on Canson Opalux paper.
5x7 Eastman No. 1, modified Wollensak Velostigmat
4:30PM sunshine!
LV ~14, f/8, 7 minutes

Development:
30 August
Faint image visible at start.
200ml of 0.7% gallic acid, added 2 drops of 12% citric acid and 4 drops of 24% silver nitrate.
Looked good after 50 minutes.