Hi Eric
Thanks for your input. The recipe I’m following comes from
Christopher James book http://www.christopherjames-studio.com/build/thebookreviews.html
.
Lots of questions I’m afraid!
I’m interested in the way you maintain you AgNO3 bath with
kaolin, that sounds like it will save me a lot of agro. I practice wetplate
photography and maintain meticulously a silver bath for that. It’s
wetplate negs I’m albumen printing. How do you maintain you bath? What is
your recipe AgNO3/H20/kaolin/anything else? I understand why you use the kaolin
but how do you measure the AgNO3 depletion? Is this by throughput, specific
gravity and pH or by feeling/experience/sense? Can the same sensitiser be used
for salt printing?
J.
From: eric nelson [mailto:emanphoto@gmail.com]
Sent: 02 February 2009 23:22
To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
Subject: Re: Albumen sensitiser question
I wouldn't know if there are crystals at the bottom of my
agno3 as there is a layer of kaolin at the bottom. You will need that too
if floating your sheets on the agno3 surface to sensitize. This is
because the organic materials in the paper and albumen will darken the solution
over time and lower it's effectiveness. After the solution begins to
darken, shake the bottle and let the kaolin settle overnight taking the
discoloration with it. Reilly has a historical illustration of how to set
up a siphon for that and mine is nearly identical except that I used a glass
milk bottle. :)
When you say James, do you mean Reilly?
Since it takes 2-3 minutes of floating the paper on the
agno3 solution to properly sensitize albumen, brush or rod coating would be a
very uneven coating. I tried brush coating only once with inferior
results UNLESS one wants that kind of look, which could be cool. But for
straight printing/imaging floating gives the best results.
On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 4:54 PM, John Brewer <john@johnbrewerphotography.com>
wrote:
Hi folks
I made up some silver nitrate sensitiser according to James p 471, that is
15% silver nitrate plus 5% citric acid in distilled water.
I see there is now some crystals at the bottom of the bottle. They weren't
there when I made the solution up and sensitised some paper. I can't seem to
dissolve them, even with heat and vigorous shaking. What are they? Are they
anything to worry about? Can I filter or decant them out?
One other thing, James says that coating with a rod is possible. This would
be preferable for me at this moment. As the sensitiser is clear, coating under
safelights is tricky to say the least. Can I do it under low ambient light as I
do quite safely with gum? If not any tips or tricks would be most welcome.
Thanks,
John.