Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Sat, 27 Mar 1999 13:15:31 -0500 (EST)
On Sat, 27 Mar 1999, Joe Portale wrote:
> Judy,
>
> Sorry for taking some time to get back to you. I lost a fight between a
> crab leg and steak knife resulting in a couple of fingers being splinted.
> This makws typing a bit tedious. Anyway...
Hope your fingers are better Joe, and hope typing didn't give you a
relapse (when I mutilate myself it's usually a foot, which is, so to
speak, even more crippling, but I can still type)... thanks for the info
-- I have just a comment or two...
> I noticed the smell from selenium toner no matter where I was living at the
> time. The exception was when we were living in New Mexico. We were on
> really nice well water in NM. For the record, we have been in three cities
> in NY, Texas, South Carolina, Georgia, ol' Virgini and finally Arizona. Oh,
> did I fail to mention that I am talking about Kodak Rapid Selenium Toner
> and not something made from scratch? I don't know if that really matters.
I would assume it does. The KRS has fixer, for one thing, which contains
sulfur (thio) which can break down & smell, also has sulfide in the
formula, tho most home-mixed formulas do, too (not all, one early one uses
only sulfite)..
^
cut--------
> I never toned a Kalli with pt or pd. I guess that I felt that if I was
> going to go that far with the expense of the more exotic metals, I may as
> well make a pt/pd print.
I never entertained such a thought for ONE MINUTE -- the way I saw it, I
could tone only those prints I cared about, especially since I was working
quite large for platinum, or what used to be large before everybody got so
damn rich -- 11x14 inches and up. And, since my general style is to be
"loose" -- experimental -- that let me be freer.
Also, the toning solution uses so much less of the metal that the cost is
negligible in any event (and remember it only goes into silver that is
already image, nothing in overall coating to go down the drain).
How much easier the kallitype is as a *process* I'm not experienced enough
to say for sure, but judging by what I read on this list, the answer is
MUCH, not to mention the wide variety of papers it works nicely with...
> I'll dig up the formula for you, if you wish. The sulfide toner does
> produce a sepia color on kallis and salted paper. Again, I never played
> with VDB, but I can't see why it would not work.
Thanks anyway, but I was trying to get *away* from browns, "sepias," etc.,
into darker cooler blacker....
> >Joe -- on second thought, what is that *smell* like? Maybe my >cellar
> just smells that way already?
>
> Judy, I hope not! The smell that I get is very reminicent of hydrogen
> sulfide...rotten eggs.
Mercifully we don't have that smell, except when doing sulphide
toning... but it occurs to me that maybe NYC water is just as sweet as New
Mexico well water.... Even sweeter, probably....
I suppose over all those years it couldn't have been just one bottle of
funny selenium? Anyway, it's another marker....
thanks for info & cheers,
Judy
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