From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 07/07/01-05:20:53 PM Z
On Sat, 7 Jul 2001, Richard Knoppow wrote:
> >
> The toner description sounds like typical gallery hype. Old photography
It's interesting that Rose is presented as very pure -- working quietly &
modestly on his own until tapped for Whitney Biennial.
> handbooks are filled with toner formulas. Many look more like alchemy than
> chemistry and make you wonder if anyone actually ever tried them. Iron and
I'm pretty sure I tried every last one of them... as have Liam, Dallas, &
many another.
> Copper toners are common, Vanadium can produce yellow and green, tin and
> lead were used plus some others. I think many of these old toners are
> mostly curiousities.
Perhaps so, but many are in use and tone silver prints quite
beautifully... For 8 years I toned *everything.* There are also beautiful
effects from manipulating with developer and combining toners and (as Jon
Bailey will tell you) from split toning.
Vanadium, last I checked, was almost as expensive as platinum, and I
didn't get the great green Dallas did, but many others are quite cheap...
and archival. I believe Berg (& Berg? or is that just one Berg?) among
others sell a lot of kits -- for copper toning, blue toning, sepia, gold,
et al... but they're easily mixed for a fraction of the price... A kit for
a litre of solution costs about $15 & then you contaminate it playing
games. Mixing from scratch with about 25 cents worth of chemicals is no
big deal (see Bailey, Liam Lawless, Dallas Simpson, Tony McLean, & yrs
truly in Post-Factorys #3 thru 6).
There was a period during '30s & '40s when attempts were made to simulate
real *color print* with 3 colors of toning... It probably worked on
occasion, but the procedure was arduous to say the least, and the yellow
used cadmium. However a couple of the formulas are terrific by themselves
-- like nickle toning, which makes an intense red (not yet covered, will
be), more magenta than Bartalozzi red, which is a sort of brick color from
copper.
I also did a lot of lead toning (as did Dallas). Given the amount of lead
all around us, you wonder if 2 g of lead acetate is so deadly. All the
"hype" frightened me off it, but it was awfully interesting while it
lasted.
Incidentally Edwal used a lot of these toners in their Colorvir kit, which
failed to catch on, probably too complicated to market... but if you can
get hold of an old manual -- terrific effects.
cheers,
Judy
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