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Re: Permanency of VDB (test)



Andre',

Thank you so much for sharing the results of your experiment. There
seems to be a persistant rumor that cyanotpe and VDB are not archival. I 
have never believed these stories because there was
no data. I have a cyanotype photo-postcard I bout in an antique
store that has a 1900 postmark. It looks nonfaded to me and I'm sure
it was not taken care of very well. Anyway I feel better about my
VDBs now as well as some of my platinums that are overprinted in VDB.
Frankly, I'm not sure a B&W silver/gel print could stand up as well to
7 months in a window. I know a C-41 color print could not.

Bob Schramm


>From: Andre Fuhrmann <Andre.Fuhrmann@uni-konstanz.de>
>Reply-To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
>To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
>Subject: Permanency of VDB (test)
>Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 14:56:04 +0200
>
>Like many others I have been wondering about the permanency of VDB
>prints.  So I did a little test.  I partly covered a reject print
>with black paper and stuck it to my window, facing the sun for a
>couple of hours each day (well, on sunny days).  That was in December
>last year.  Today (after more than 7 months) the window cleaners
>dropped into my office and so I thought it may be time to have a
>closer look at what has happened to the print.  Here is the result:
>
>http://www.uni-konstanz.de/FuF/Philo/Philosophie/Fuhrmann/themen/VDBtest.jpg
>
>The scan faithfully reproduces the print (at least on my screen).  I
>would describe it as follows:  The fading is only vvvery slight.  It
>is more like putting a silver print through Farmer's thus enhancing
>contrast.  More noticeable than the fading is the alteration in tone.
>The exposed part has assumed a warmer brown.  So in sum: the print
>has become slightly more contrasty and warmer in tone.  With many
>images that could be an improvement.  In such cases we should not
>speak of faded but of matured vandykes ;-)
>
>Please note that I deliberately underfixed the print -- after all I
>wanted to test a worst case scenario.  I washed only a few minutes
>and fixed for 1 minute in plain hypo 2% followed by a 20 minutes wash.
>
>André

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