I was disappointed to hear that that the Albumen and Salted Paper Book is no
longer available. It is such a useful and amusing book.
Wouldn't it be possible for a photocopied and bound version of it to be
prepared, with the agreement of Jim Reilly and the publishers. I know that there
is a demand for it here.
There are large numbers og books on how do do it Have you tried The Silver
Sunbeam by J Towler which is produced in a facsimile of the 1864 edition by
Morgan and Morgan.
As to how to make an albumenprint I suggest that you make an
an albumen/arrowroot print instead which gives a matt suface and does not look
quite so much like a toned resin coated print as the shiny originals did. They
were heavily into high tech then.
To make a litre of salting arrowroot solution, take 50 ml of puri.fied water
which you stir slowly into 35 g of arrowroot which is used as a transparent
glaze in cooking, you should be able to get it from the flour and flavourings
section in the supermarket. Keep it stirred as it settles quickly.
Separately dissolve 35 g of ammonium chloride in 950 ml of purified water and
bring it to the boil in a glass saucepan using a wooden spoon. Stir the boiling
water into the arrowroot, slowly, give a thorough stir and return the mixture to
the saucepan and simmer gently until the mixture begins to glop like volcanic
mud. Stand it to one side and allow to cool.
Take a large egg, the sort you eat with your soldiers, and separate out the yolk
and the vif or germ, the translucent white bit. Using a hand electric beater,
beat the egg until it has peaks, you will see what that means, or until you can
hold the bowl upside down and the egg does not fall out. Put the bowl in the
fridge overnight until the egg settles out into a liquid again.
Take one part, start with 10 ml, of the arrowroot custard and one part of the
settled out liquid egg; beating it has broken up the proteins, and place in a
small glass jar with a tight lid, and shake it about a lot. I usually pass it
around the students asking them to give a hundred shakes each.
Using a soft brush, a bound ferrule hake brush is ideal, there should be no
metal, coat the paper evenly. Ensure that every square micrormillimeter of the
picture area is thoroughly covered. Allow the paper to dry.
Make a 12% solution of silver nitrate, ie 12 g made up to 100 ml with purified
water from the pharmacy). Keep in a brown glass jar or bottle, preferably the
ribbed bottle made for poisons and label it Silver Nitrate 12% Solution, POISON.
Do not breathe the dust. it stops breathing Do not get on you as it turns black
on exposure to light and you have to wait until the body replaces that skin for
the stain to go away and that is two or three weeks.! if you have open cuts on
your hands do not use silver nitrate. I know someone who died when he got it
into a cut- it joined up the synapses in the nervous system and paralysed him.
Keep it away from organic substances such as soap which will make the silver
precipitate.
With a different hake brush kept for the purpoise, making sure that the brush is
well loaded, paint the silver nitrate solution across one stripe of the picture
area. Ensure that everywhere along the stripe is covered.
Reload the brush and starting at the same side of the paper that your first
stripe started, paint a new stripe slightly overlapping the first. Repeat until
the picture area is covered.Do not attemt to work in the silver nitrate as you
would if you were using gloss paint. Place in the dark to dry.
Then treat in the same way as you would for a sensitisd salt print.
This is a simplified version of much that appears in the books which go in for
filtering through muslin for example, which is an unnecessary complication.
If this were a workshop there would be extra hints and funny incidents, but it
ain't so try and let me know what you get.
Terry King