Re: facial tanners for UV light?
Hi Gregg, Jean . . .
I bought one of those Edwards light boxes the first year he made
them, and it was incredibly cheap. I'm sure he made absolutely no
money on them, if you take into consideration his labor costs. After
a while, it was too small, so Peter make me another one, half-
heartedly following the way that one had been built, but much bigger
and with a lot of design changes. The most difficult part, at the
time, was finding the right light bulbs.
That one worked for a while, and then I got an amazing deal on a
vacuum print frame a couple of years ago-- from a guy in Wilmington
who was teaching alt photo processes. He didn't get many takers in
his classes, so eventually just shut down his "school." He sold
everything, and one of the last pieces to go was this huge vacuum
print frame. I saw it listed somewhere, called him up, and he named
a price, and I named another price, much cheaper, and he took it-- as
long as I came and picked it up. I think he was just so happy to be
rid of it, he didn't care about the price. It is ridiculously heavy
and does take up space, deserving a room of its own, but once I
started using it-- I just love it. It's amazing. I can't believe I
waited so long to get one.
Anyway, if you want to use any of my old light boxes, let me know;
before you go and make one, though, keep your eye out for a vacuum
print frame. You can probably find them used (I would think), and
they will be more expensive-- but well worth every penny, in my opinion.
When I started doing alt processes, years ago, I did just print in
the sun. Not as consistently reliable, but worked well-- especially
here in the South.
Diana
On Mar 3, 2008, at 7:53 AM, Gregg Kemp wrote:
Wow! Its great to read your words again, Jean. It has been a while.
And I think I will take your advice and buy the facial tanner for
now. I'm tracking a couple on eBay. I'm excited about making more
cyanotypes and have ordered chemicals for VDB. I think that making
my own UV light source right now would slow me down a bit. But I
also suspect I'll start building one soon in order to make larger
prints (in time).
Its really nice to hear from you and I'm looking forward to staying
in touch with you.
- Gregg
On Mar 3, 2008, at 6:01 AM, Jean Daubas wrote:
Hi Gregg !
So nice to meet you again on this list !
[sorry for adding a very personal issue but, for those who are not
familiar with the magics of tiny holes, I must say that Gregg and
I were belonging to this incredible international team of mad
pinholists who invented and founded the WPPD, Worldwide Pinhole
Photography Day, now a major annual event. That was ... 7 years
ago (2001). And Diana Bloomfield, so active on our alt process
list, was also one of these crazy pinholists ! And last year, as
a curator of a major International Camera Obscura exhibit in
Besançon (France), I had the luck to hang wonderful colour
pinholes prints from Gregg...
Now back to the subject : Gregg, I really encourage you to use
this kind of facial tanners which you may find at low prices on e-
bay ; it will be very useful for you as a starter equipment
(cheap, constant, easy to use, lightweight, transportable and
adapted for small formats as 8x 10 or A4 if you have a printing
frame for these formats).
Later, when you really get addicted to alt processes, you will
probably wish to buy (so expensive !) or to buil your own UV Light
bank. That's exactly what I'm doing now, building a new UV source
with 8 x 24 " tubes (plans inspired from various ressources :
http://shutterbug.com/techniques/lighting/0900sb_howto/
http://www.eepjon.com/Ubldit.htm and http://www.eepjon.com/
faquv.htm Some tiime ago, you could find on this site an
excellent description with plans and cutting list but it seems
that Jon Edwards has now suppressed these pages. So, if you are
interested , Gregg, just tell me off-list and I'll send you these
documents.
And, as usual, my reference to Judy's unique World Journal of
Post-Factory Photography where I found a great variety of designs
and ideas for building (#6).
I bought my own "facial tanner" on e-bay 4 years ago and still use
it with a lot of satisfaction for cyanotypes, argyrotypes and gum.
Though, never tried to tan my face ;-). The model is :
"Original Philips UVA" Uv type 3 with 4 x tubes Philips TL
29D 16 / 09 N
Hope it helps,
Cheers from france,
Jean
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