From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 04/25/02-11:22:05 PM Z
Following are excerpts from Post-Factory # 4, about paper negatives then
and now (and the pictorialists inbetween).
But-- I imported this via the clipboard, which doesn't do dashes,
quotation marks or apostrophes (ie, "smart quotes" from pagemaker), so you
must supply your own:
===============================================
THE FIRST PAPER NEGATIVES
[cut] In the beginning, pretty much all photographs except daguerreotypes
were made from paper negatives: [cut]
This negative, often waxed to make it more transparent and minimize fiber,
was contact printed to another sheet of sensitized paper to make a
positive, or what we generally call a photograph. However, the waxed paper
negative of museum wall labels may be something else. Gustave Le Gray
developed a different paper negative process, which we find is Cassells
entry for Waxed-Paper Process. As the experts (literally the experts)
explained on the Photohistory List (Dec. 4-6, 1999), Le Grays negatives
were waxed before coating, Talbots after coating, or not at all.
Michael Gray, Curator of the National Trust, Fox Talbot Museum, finds
Gustave Le Grays process the first variation in applying the basic
chemistry, but not different enough from Talbots calotype to be completely
separate: the chemicals and procedures were essentially the same.
Gray notes that waxing before exposure was a work-around for inferior
French papers, sized with starch. (UK papers were sized with gelatin,
which gave inherently greater wet strength.) Waxing the French Canson
paper waterproofed it, so even long baths in chemical solutions were safe.
After being impregnated with beeswax, the paper was meticulously ironed
with blotters, to remove as much wax as possible and fill the spaces
between the fibres. The paper pores were then filled with a thick
glutinous rice starch, which absorbed the potassium iodide prior to
immersion in silver nitrate. The sensitiser was thus formed by double
decomposition, as with calotype, although the chemicals were within the
paper, not on it.
Dr. Larry J. Schaaf, however, takes a different view. While Gustave Le
Grays 1848 waxed paper process... had the same general basis as the
calotype, the fact that the wax was incorporated into the paper fibers
before the paper was sensitized made all the difference. The wax entered
into the process both chemically and physically right from the start and
the speed and tonal range [were] different from that of the calotype.
The two methods not only work differently chemically [they] produce
different aesthetic results. Schaaf adds, incidentally, that of 3,203
Talbot camera negatives in his Catalogue Raisonne, some half were waxed
(and never before development). The finished and dried negative was waxed
to speed printing, but at a price. It made the negative more vulnerable to
damage... It also affected the tonal range, generally making the negative
more contrasty.
See Frederick Flower: a Pioneer Portuguese Photographer, 1850-1865,
co-authored by Michael Gray, for many remarkable details of the waxed
paper and collodion processes. Gray also notes that some paper-negative
prints are almost as sharp as glass, while collodion negatives can be
quite soft and diffused, not out of focus or optically caused, but from
physical development, which is on the surface, as opposed to chemical
development, in the collodion or paper fibers. [cut]
The paper negative went amateur in the 1930s and 40s; as books and
articles happily explained how to enlarge your small-format negatives (now
standard among amateurs) for a positive, then a negative, then the art
print. [cut]
Earlier factory papers had been too thick and opaque, also too slow, for
paper negatives. Workers might coat the paper with castor oil to make it
translucent, but that was a mess, as was a darkroom full of oily
negatives. In fact, the following month (Nov. 34), an article in Camera
Craft warned against oiling paper negatives, saying the oil would work its
way to the face of the print, with disastrous results. (Oil also increased
the effect of grain, which might or might not have been desired.) Now, we
read, thin-based papers were on the market, and the new bromide or
chlorobrom papers were faster and easier to expose.
Instructions for the original neg were the familiar -- exposure on the
full side with slight under-development in a soft-working formula, density
in the shadows, highlights not too dense to expose through, good detail in
both high and low register. [cut]
When the first enlargement was finished and dry, modifications began on
the back, on a light box. The worker could darken up the shadows a bit to
heighten the contrast and/or darken up the foreground to increase
perspective, with a tuft of cotton into which has been worked some
powdered graphite, sold at art supply stores as crayon sauce. This was a
small stick, broken up as finely as possible, then worked into the cotton.
Make a trial rub on another sheet, as sometimes a large piece is picked up
which will make a heavy streak. The areas darkened on the positive are
darker in the final print. Spots, scratches, and so forth were retouched
with soft lead pencil. [cut]
The final step was flattening the print, fiber paper being especially
brittle and curly in the dry air of winter. Place in a bath of one part
glycerine to 20 parts water for a few minutes before pinning up to dry.
For extreme cases, paint the back with a solution of one part table
gelatin in 20 parts water, then place in the press.
================================================
Another article did instructions for waxing paper negatives (eg xerox or
inkjet prints) with paraffin or sunflower oil.... which some of us do to
this very day.
Judy
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