"Blueprint" & Pink Skies [was: Is This Off Topic ?]
On Fri, 30 Nov 2007, John Grocott wrote: The narrator did not say what process the photo [the Steichen] was, but I This is the first time I've seen the term "ferro-prussiate" used this way... So I figured maybe it was used at the time, making it apt enough ... but checking a Cassell's "Cyclopaedia of Photography" edition circa 1913, I find, under the entry for "Ferroprussiate" (one word), only "See Blue-print Process" [hyphenated].seem to recall that it was a platinum and ferro- prussiate print. So what gives? Is that like calling an inkjet print a glycee??? Or a desk an escritoire? Or? (I checked the Aperture website & found only PR for Aperture, plus a repro of the Steichen image, which, if I recall correctly, they were offering to sell in gravure form.) Meanwhile John, Jean, & co, since you seem familiar with this history... I've noticed that the Steichens of the period (Stieglitz's too, if memory serves) described as platinum and gum, including one of the Flatiron Building, have a pinkish sky that seems to mean the "pink," or gum coat, must have been printed through a positive. Otherwise, getting a pink sky would have required blasting everything else... (tho I suppose the rest could have been brushed off ?). Anyway, I've always wondered about that. Is there any record on the topic? J.
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