From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 06/23/00-11:01:30 AM Z
With all due respect to Andre (and I'm so delighted when anyone agrees
with me about anything that I feel positively churlish to disagree!), has
it occurred to you, the list, anybody, that expecting a great print on
your very first try is ---- optimistic? (Tho I have been given to
understand that salted paper takes a neg of practically 3.0.)
As for the questions now asked re selenium toning color, dilution,
effect, and so forth -- permit me to mention Post-Factory and an article
Liam is writing for it about make-your-own-POP emulsion, which he is too
(pathologically ) modest to mention: It came in at something like 30,000
words, and is, I regret to say being pared to a mere 7000 or so, at least
for part I (to allow room for the address label, etc.), but the content to
a FASCINATING degree is how the VARIABLES of paper, balance, ratio,
temperature, dilution, humidity, timing, source of gelatin and godwat what
else, all laid out and charted meticulously and explicitly by our hero,
affect every other factor, INCLUDING and especially color (or as he
insists, some things you just have to accept, "colour").
Nor do I think this is apples and oranges... in any event, having just
read through this stunning opus (tho, Liam, not all of us eat molecular
weights for breakfast), coming upon the flat question "what dilution of
selenium," or even "does it work," strike me as not usefully or anyway
definitively answered without, well, maybe 4000 words.
best,
Judy
On Fri, 23 Jun 2000, Andre Fuhrmann
wrote:
> Hi All!
>
> After the first messages on salted papers on Wednesday I felt an itch
> to try it out. So I coated Arches Aquarelle twice with salted (3%)
> gelatine (2%) and after thorough drying applied silver nitrate 12%
> twice. What I found left mixed feelings. The images printed out
> vvvvery nicely but after fixing (5% hypo) they were reduced to very
> flat images indeed. More overexposing didn't help the flat
> appearance. So I suppose that the process is for _extremely_ hard
> negs only. and indeed with my hardest negs I got some acceptable
> results -- but only after I watered down the hypo to 2-3% where I
> left the prints for 8 mins. Now I naturally wonder how stable the
> images will be. Frustration came to a climax when I perused my
> beautiful Nadar book (published by Schirmer & Mosel). The Nadar
> prints are so stunningly beautiful with their luminous shadows and
> bright but well-separated highlights! How on earth did he do it? I
> conclude that the salted paper process has very great potential but
> is also very far from being fool-proof. One possible source of my
> ill-success is perhaps the use of household salt. Perhaps it is too
> impure for the purpose, leading to chemical fogging. But then, how
> pure was the salt Nadar used in the 1860s?? The salt I used
> contained also some iodide which, I guess, enhances the tendency to a
> warm brown tone.
>
> As to the comparison with vandykes, I side -- as yet -- with Judy.
> It strikes me as a much simpler process, easier to control, better
> suited for nearly normal negatives and, not to forget, cheaper. As
> to their permanence: As I write this I look at a test vandyke stuck
> to my window 7 months ago. I covered half of it with black carton
> (probably _not_ acid-free), the other half faces the sun for a couple
> of hours every day: as yet no visible change. That indicates a good
> deal of permanence, though, of course, we may have to wait another
> 300 months to pass a judgement with more confidence.
>
> Andre
>
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