>I vote for the Kallitype as the most underrated of the alt processes. I
>spent many an hour at the UCLA Research Library when they had all of the
>old photo stuff still on the open stacks. Now its of tucked away in the
>little library up by Nuclear Medicine and behind lock and key and you have
>to beg a student worker to fetch them for you. (You couldn't get to the
>stacks for many years unless you were a grad student either, but I solved
>that one by making a stamp out of a big gum eraser and an Xacto knife. My
>card then had "Stacks" stamped on the back.)
>My favorite activity was to grab a bunch of bound photo journals and mags
>from the late 19th and early 20th Centuries and just browse them. None of
>that stuff is indexed and the only way you can find things is mostly by
>luck.
I found a solution to this: Just read everything cover to cover and create
your own index. This is what I have been doing for many years.
>This leads to another one of my pet theories which I will bore the old
>timers here with again: the magical dissapearance of the Kallitypes. Allow
>me to namedrop, but I just this last Friday discussed this very topic with
>Van Deren Coke. "Have you ever seen any Kallitypes in collections?" Is a
>question I am fond of asking curators and major collectors. Some say that
>they think they may have seen one or two, but can't remember exactly where
>or when.
>
>This question came up between Coke and me when he asked what the Doris
>Ullman prints might be made of. He says that recently some were tested and
>they have no pt or pd in them. He said they didn't test for silver.
I don't know what he is using but he should have them tested for Ag. The
outfit I use covers everything with their X-ray diffraction unit, although
I have run into a print, now in my own collection, that has no Ag, no Pt,
no Pd, no uranium either and it does not look at all like a pigment print!
We're completely baffled by this one.
>Interesting! Melody has a couple of Ullmans's in her collection. (She
>collects "Women's photographs of women." ) Ullman was poor and worked in
>Appalachia.
Poor? As in "poor as Bill Gates"? Read on:
Macmillan Biographical Encyclopedia, p. 630: Doris Ulman (1884-1934): "Her
interest in American handicrafts took her to Appalachia around 1925, where
she became taken with the people. For the rest of her life she spent six to
eight months a year traveling through the mountains and back roads of the
South... Despite the fact that she in no way hid her tremendous family
wealth, Ulmann produced straightforward, unpretentious and respectful
photographs of the Appalachian people..."
She studied photography with Clarence White in 1914. She began her
photography career as a portraitist in 1918.
>Could these be Kallitypes? Coke said he thought that they were
>made on pre-coated paper. I believe I heard that there was a Kallitype type
>of pre-coated paper made in the 20's and 30's and maybe one of our resident
>historians could amplify this.
It was called Polychrome, introduced by C. Hawks, of California, ca. 1921.
I don't think it was very popular.
>My theory that Kallitypes really exist and are peppering collections world
>wide. It's just that they have been masquerading as platinums. Truth in
>advertising was not a big deal in the earlier part of this century. People
>did not annotate prints as much as they do today. There are only a couple
>of possibilities:
>
>They were properly labeled as Kallitypes, they all faded to white, and were
>thrown way. (nothing fades to white.)
I am the happy owner of George E. Brown's _Ferric and Heliographic
Processes_, 2nd ed., not dated, but published in 1907. I also own the 1st
ed. (1899)
He writes under Permanency of Kallitype: "There is no doubt that numbers of
Kallitype prints have stood the test of time for six years or more, whilst
others have faded. ... Experience shows that an ammonia fixing bath is not
sufficient to guarantee permanence, and the hypo bath, preceded by the
thorough removal of the iron salts, should be adopted from the practice of
Hall and other later workers of the process. Toning with gold or platinum
may, of course, be done, but the simplicity and cheapness of Kallitype is
at once discounted, and one might as well use platinotype right away."
Amen.
I am also of the opinion that the type of paper used has a significant role
to play since the images consists of finely divided silver without the
protective effect of an emulsion. The bad news is that there are thousands
of possible additives used in the manufacture of papers, which they keep
changing all the time anyway, that a considerable amount of experimentation
would be required to determine which paper is safe and which is not. Imo,
it's not worth the hassle.
The above mentioned book has a number of original tipped in prints, and
here is what they look like now, at the ripe old age of 90 or so:
BLUEPRINT: excellent condition. The back shows some mellowing like the rest
of the book.
BROWN PRINT (negative copy, white line of brown background): The outside
area of the page (though not the gutter) is significantly darker than the
rest. The center of the image is a little weak as it it had bleached but it
is hard to say. The paper is quite thin, cheap, and the image shows
through. The back also shows a considerable darkening around the edges, but
not the gutter. The "poor health" of this specimen is due in part to the
poor quality paper.
Permanent BLACK LINE photo-print by Hall: Excellent. Some mellowing of the
paper is visible.
Norton Gregory's NEW BLACK LINE process: Excellent, as above.
Bemrose's CARBON PROCESS (PERMANENT): Superb. The paper, the only one
coated, is much brighter than everything else in the book.
Luis Nadeau
NADEAUL@NBNET.NB.CA
Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
http://www3.nbnet.nb.ca/nadeaul/