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Re: Dassonville Charcoal black paper
At 2000/03/25 11:36 AM -0500, Joe Arkins wrote:
>Dassonville Charcoal Black was a legendary commercially produced
>silver-gelatine paper, made during the 1920-45 period, which was produced
>by Will Dassonville, an eminent pictorialist. It was a silver-rich, warm
>tone chlorobromide emulsion coated on fine papers in varying textures. It
>hasn't been made since the end of World War II -- Dassonville sold his
>factory to Defender Photo Products (I think) but they didn't keep the
>product line in production for very long.
Dassonville Charcoal Black was made in only one surface (Rough - like
artists' charcoal paper) and provided pure black images. The company made
many beautiful papers (including a translucent parchment), all of which
were my favorites, but it was a niche market and couldn't survive. The
factory was purchased by Defender (which at the time was a Division of
DuPont) and DuPont had a policy of "if it doesn't earn a million dollars
per item per annum, get rid of it" so they closed down the factory. I know,
because Defender's Varigam (as well as Charcoal Black) did not tone well
with standard toners, and I created a toner which did work. DuPont sent a
factory rep to discuss this with me, but advised me to either produce it
myself or get a "smaller" mfr to market it, because of their "million
dollar" rule. Of course, Defender went under, too, as soon as their cash
cow - Varigam - was replicated by others when the patents expired.
It's what is going to happen to BW in general, which is why alt-photo will
become "the" photographic artist's medium. (As an example, Kodak just sold
its entire accessory line, including Wratten filters, to Tiffen. ) The
handwriting isn't just on the wall, it's hardened in stone! Go digital, or
make everything yourself! Or both.
<<sil>>
<silh@psa-photo.org>
<webmaster@psa-photo.org>
Sil Horwitz, FPSA
Technical Editor, PSA Journal
check out <http://www.psa-photo.org>
personal page: http://home.earthlink.net/~silh/