[alt-photo] Re: Alt-photo-process-list Digest, Vol 117, Issue 1

[jackfulton]

> 	The local Museum has asked me to give a lecture on some of the  
> processes used to make some 19th century prints in their  
> collection.? They
> wanted me to demonstrate one of the processes so I opted for a salt  
> print.  The trick is that they want me to do everything at the demo
> except mix the solutions (which I will need to do ahead of time):  
> i.e., coat the salt soln, dry, coat the silver soln, dry, expose,  
> salt wash bath,
> wash, tone, fix, wash.? That means that I wouldn?t be able to salt  
> the paper ahead of time.?
>       The formulae always use gelatin in the salt solution.? If I  
> use COT 320, a well gelatin sized paper, might I get away without  
> putting gelatin in the salt solution?? This would allow me to mix it  
> a day or two before the demo without the gelatin hardening.  BOB

Bob:
	I'm sitting here, slightly north of San Francisco, gray day, about to  
rain, and looking @ the bay. Here is my 'romantic' way of showing
the salt print.
	You must live near salt water as your web site shows people & water.  
Take a few sheets of quality bond typing paper available from
a nice stationery store and dip them in the fresh, clean Barbados salt  
water and let dry. Tell you audience that's what you did.
	Go to the market and buy some Knox (or other brand) pure gelatin.
	Mix and pour in a tray, before their very eyes, and show them how to  
'float' it.
	Use a wooden clothes pin and hang up on a standard coat hanger.
	Employ a hair dryer also most likely purchased @ a nearby drug store.

Okay, that is all basic household stuff . . .right?  I'd then produced  
the fully salted, gelatinized AND AgNO3 double-coated-brushed and
finished paper (because to coat and dry is messy and boring to an  
audience of neophytes.

Then in that lush, bright, delicious Barbados sun, make a print.

Always have fun.

Jack Fulton