That old uranium glow

Richard Sullivan (richsul@roadrunner.com)
Sun, 15 Dec 1996 11:34:16 -0700

Judy postulates:

>Apparently my new power computer, dopey as it is, does at least one thing
>remarkably -- foretell the future. Or perhaps there's some other
>explanation for your "dateline" of Sunday Dec. 15, when it's only Saturday
>around here?

It's a Northern New Mexico secret. I guess it must be Roadrunner.com, my
service provider. Santa Fe which has a 60,000 population has 8 local service
providers. My own fought Warner Bros for the name and won. They had been
using it for several years when Warner decided that "roadrunner" was theirs.
There has been roadrunner this and that in this part of the country since
Coronado went through.

>Anyway, I'm curious about your uranium nitrate. I recall (and since my
>brain has been more compressed than usual this week, I could be in error)
>that you said, first, that you had a stock of uranium nitrate, but then
>that you didn't know if platinum printers still use it. OK, so why did you
>get it and what do you do with it? I mean if this is top secret, forget
>it, but as I said, I can't help wondering....

There are quite a few uranium formulas in the old books. We've had requests
for it over the years, and yes, we're selling it. I also want to do some
experimenting with it. I've seen formulas for palladium printing where the
urnayl nitrate was use in place of the ferric oxlate. Expensive, perhaps,
but intriguing. What kind of image is produced?

I'm hoping that there will be renaissance in alt-photo techniques in the
near future. I've been making alt pictures since the late 60's and during
most of that time we have been slaves to formulas of the past. Now we have
people like yourself, Mike Ware, and myself, starting to experiment with new
processes. For instance the our new Ziatype palladium process now has two
components: a charcoal black, the double salt of lithium and palladium, and
the sepia component, the double salt of cesium and palladium. The two can be
combined for intermediate colors. I'd sure like to get the red into the mix
somehow and I keep thinking that the uranium will do it but so far no luck.
I know that uranium is supposed to be fugitive, but is it if it is combined
with other more stable elements or as an intermediate. Any ideas on this
appreciated.

Dick Sullivan
Bostick & Sullivan
Santa Fe, New Mexico