[Alt-photo] ammonium caseinate

[Christina Anderson]

Dear List,
Finally a source for ammonium caseinate, the form of casein that is water soluble. PH is about 7. NO ammonia smell/fumes! Very non-toxic and user-friendly. Photographer's Formulary now has it in stock! They have also made a kit that includes preservative, pigments, and dichromate.
See here:
http://stores.photoformulary.com/-strse-1008/Ammonium-Caseinate/Detail.bok
And
http://stores.photoformulary.com/-strse-1009/CASEIN-PRINTING-KIT/Detail.bok
All's needed would be paper and PVA sizing.
(Note: even though I wrote the directions for the Formulary (which are available for free), I make no money at this; I just wanted someone to carry the stuff because I wasn't interested in buying it by the 50lb sack which would last me 60 lifetimes. My vested interest is that they would keep it available, nothing more).
I've been working with the caseinate powder formula over the last almost 3 years. It works great, and I whip it up in my food processor very easily. Ready to use as soon as the foaminess subsides (similar to mixing gum arabic from powder).
I always used thymol to preserve but apparently thymol is getting pricey, so the Formulary had me try sodium benzoate and it works great, just as it does with gum arabic. I use 1/4 tsp to preserve 100ml of casein.
For those who have not used casein, I use it at 10% dilution and thus 10g of the stuff will make easily 20 tricolor prints. I use about 1 ml to coat 30 sq. inches, or about 2.5ml for an 8x10 of combined casein/pigment/dichromate. VERY economical.
One unfortunate thing, but maybe Photo Formulary has a way around this because they are a photo place, but I couldn't ship ammonium caseinate to Europe because it is a milk product and Europe has rules about shipping milk products into the EU, I think related to disease issues.
Anyway, soon I will post my new caseins to my website that I have been working on night and day this past month. 50-60 to date, 4-6 layers, still another 20 to go. It's been quite fun but frustrating at times when I do something stupid like put a print to expose in the contact frame and forget to take out a negative I left in there. Arggggh. After 2 layers.
You may also enjoy Guido Ceppen's casein prints. I could never find him on the web before for some reason, maybe the language barrier, but when he posted a bit ago I immediately emailed him and he shared his website with me.
http://www.guidoceuppens.be/
He does casein in an artsy/blocky/screenprinting way that is quite intriguing!
Enjoy the Memorial Weekend!
Chris

Christina Z. Anderson
christinaZanderson.com