Greg Neville, Prahran abstract, 2014

This photograph was made in a 5×4 pinhole camera loaded with Harmann Direct Positive paper. The subject is a sunlit wall seen through a window.

Harmann Direct Positive is a fibre-based paper that gives you a positive print without the negative stage. Development is in normal print chemicals. The paper is rated at 3 ISO, so the f128 aperture needed a four minute exposure. A curious feature is that longer exposure time results in lighter images rather than darker, as habit would tell you. The extreme contrast is typical when using darkroom papers exposed in daylight. And being an image from the camera, it’s mirror-reversed.

Unfortunately the paper is currently unavailable from Ilford. Legal difficulties with the defunct Harmann Switzerland mean supplies are unlikely in “the medium term.” Let’s hope it’s resolved.

To demonstrate the potential of this paper, Serbian photographer Braca Nadezdic has made a series of portraits on Harmann paper, rated at 1.5 ISO.