From: Sandy King (sanking@hubcap.clemson.edu)
Date: 03/12/01-09:38:21 AM Z
Joe Portale wrote:
>The problem of permenance with kallitype may in fact be a non-issue. There
>are many reasons, historic, urban myth and just plain bad PR why kalli's
>were concidered to be less than permanent. The earliest kallies were in
>fact pretty transitory. The use of a sodium thiosulfate fixer was not a
>common practice. Herschell and Talbot, in their early work, both used
>common table salt as a fixer. Also, the first generation kalitypes were
>compounded with the impure brown ferric ammonium citrate. The later
>versions and today, use the more pure green FAO. This lack of chemical
>purity with the AFO would be a root cause of early image failure.
I think the problem is not a non-issue for a lot of people because the
prevailing opinion is that kallitypes are *not* very permanent. If that is
not the case a sharing of opinions about what constitutes the best
processing for permanency would really be in order.
>
>As with Callie, I have Van Dykes that have been siting in a frame on my wall
>(in various houses) for well over ten years. They look as good as the day
>they were made. I forgot who did this, but a kallitype was actually
>attached to the inside window of a car. This person drove around with the
>print in the back window for two years without showing any sign of
>degrading. If my memory serves me, this person lives in a very sunny
>climate where the effects of the sun would be very apparant.
Yes, I remember the story, and the person was from Portugal. Carlos *&^^&???
>
>Dick Sullivan stated that he believes that one of the reasons that
>kallitypes are considered not permanent is the lack of examples in museums
>and galleries. People being people, if the untrained eye could not tell the
>difference, what prevented a nineteenth century photographer from selling a
>platinum print and delivering a kallitype?
I rather doubt that there are a lot of vintage kallitypes out there
masquerading as platinums, but on the other hand platinum toned kallitypes
can have all of the same visual refernces as real platinum prints.
>What is
>the single most common mistake amatures make when printing pictures? In my
>experience is lack of proper fixing and washing.
There also appears to be some question about length of development as a
contributory factor to permanence. And of course clearing.
>
>Debate?
What concerns me more than anything else is the amount of contradictory
information one finds in the literature. One expert says develop for a
minimum period of time, another says you need to develop for 6-10 minutes.
One says clear for 2 minutes, another recommends 10-15 minutes. It would
really be useful for experts like yourself and Callie Type to clarify some
of the issues inherent in these contradictory recommendations.
Regards,
Sandy King
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