First to Judy Siegel, I probably should have said traditional instead of original method of toning. It's just that I hadn't seen many tea toned cyanotypes over here. I usually use colombian coffee for ' enhancing' silver emulsion prints on Fabriano paper.
On the question of Prussian blue colour, my judgement is clouded by the fact that the water in this part of London is undrinkable so you may imagine what it does to blueprints.
However, when they are good they are very good but I tend to avoid them for weddings and childrens' portraits.
I spoke to Alan Jenkins today and he is working hard on large format negs and is with a new gallery which is selling his stuff.
As far as the book is concerned , it is definitely a book for the darkroom. Wire bound, 300 plus colour images, the maximum of information with the minimum of science,and hardly any classic 19th century images apart from Fox Talbot.
Contents include basic chemistry, paper and paper making, all the irons and silvers, pigments, colloids and photo mechanicals.
Our watchword is "there ain't no rules". (if Rauschenberg didn't say that then who did ?)
For what it's worth I am a freelance photographer and lecturer and have been messing about with old processes for 15 years for fun and a little money. I teach at museums, universities,art schools and schools. My real work is making black and white documentaries of isolated communities which are threatened with radical change or extinction. My heroes are Walker Evans and Paul Strand.
Three years ago I got together with Silverprint to produce a book which we reckoned fulfilled a need and over which we had total control.
I hope this doesn't sound like a commercial but you did ask!
For more details email Silverprint on sales@silverprint.co.uk or on their website which is being updated, http://www.silverprint.co.uk
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From: Judy Seigel[SMTP:jseigel@panix.com]
Sent: 07 December 1999 20:07
To: 'alt-photo'
Subject: Re: Allan Jenkins' Cyanotypes
Randall, I've seen that book mentioned before. Can you tell us more about
it? For instance, is it for sale in the colonies? Has it got a naked lady
on the cover? Could you mention the table of contents????
HOWEVER, PLEASE PERMIT ME TO SHOUT ! (Sorry this system doesn't permit
really BIG letters, like 9 feet high in flames...), the "characteristic
Prussian blue" is not only not *unpleasant*, it is absolutely meltingly
swooningly gorgeous. I mean we knew that, as looking at cyanotypes makes
perfectly plain, for instance, as I've mentioned on this list, John
Dugdale's, and today I saw a stunningly gorgeous blue from Tom Ferguson,
and Sunday at the Photographica Fair in downtown NYC saw (and mooned over
for the 3rd time) Larry Gottheim's album of old cyanotypes, all (please
give me strength), for sale.
When you write "colour," I know you're in albion somewhere -- maybe it's
the water?
Finally, permit me to add, that gorgeous as Jenkins' prints may be (and
from the great pictures in Martin Reed's Silver Emulsion book, I assume
they are)...dipping in cold or even hot tea is a time-honored practice...
popular these many years with my undergraduate students, a couple of whom,
for variable-test assignments, compared colors from Chinese, Pekoe,
Darjeeling and so forth. However the stain to the paper base is not
everyone's, excuse me, dish of tea.
Best,
Judy
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