Through the good offices of a well-connected friend, I have come into the
Silverprint Catalog ('93) & price list ('95).
Silverprint, my fellow Americans, is the ultimate Alt-Photo-Shoppe, the
source for everything your alt-photo heart desires, from an array of Raw
Chemicals (amidol, EDTA, ferric ammonium citrate, formamidine sulphinic
acid, silver oxide, etc.), to film (sheet and roll), paper (factory,
including non-super-coated Kentmere, and artists', including the famed
Buxton), and kits (like Mike Ware's argyrotype). And those coating rods
and syringes, silver toners in great variety, liquid photographic
emulsions of several types, register frames (a sensible-looking system
designed by Peter Fredrick for negs up to 8x10"), "dishes" (called trays
by the rational), and every kind of darkroom material, from the routine to
the exotic, including HT-2 residual hypo test solution, and fiberglass
screening. Yes, and TWEEN 20, too, apparently NOT a large grunge rock
band, but a "surfactant."
Remember our agonies getting formaldehyde? SP has a half-litre for 3
pounds (about $5), no questions asked, no note from your mother. So far no
glyoxal, though. And no gum arabic (not even gum stip!), and no glycin --
in the land of the man who synthesized it.
And that, friends, is what's wrong with Silverprint. The location: London.
(I can't explain it either.) Prices in some cases seem high, but at least
as often, below our usual. Is Silverprint a possible
mail-order-to-the-colonies provider? Who knows? But obstacles of
money-changing and shipping exist in any event.
One more thing. No US source I've seen shows the comprehensive,
well-written *and* accurate instructions for both kits and mix-your-own
the Silverprint catalog does. There are sections on lith printing
(yellow/brown/peach tones on high-contrast graphic arts papers), on
argyrotype, salted paper, and so forth. But imagine a whole page on making
your own "regular" photo emulsions, and another on using both
Silverprint's house-brand emulsion and Liquid Light. (You could put Kodak
out of business before it puts you out of business!) Photographer's
Formulary descriptions are not in this league (and I will never forgive
PF's inexcusable, heinous description of gum bichromate as unable to do
fine detail).
Handing out my 4-page Source Sheet (which needs revision every year) to
students, I've often wished for some place like Silver Print. I see the
frustration and confusion of beginners trying to collect supplies from a
dozen or more places. Some give up. Maybe they aren't too bright, but
without recruits we die on the vine. Obviously, we need a Silverprint
Outpost West. Preferably in NY of course, but anywhere in UPS range would
do. (Anybody got an MBA?)
Happy New Year on all sides of the Atlantic,
Judy