ARTHURWG@aol.com
Date: 10/03/02-08:49:39 PM Z
I just happened to copy a very detailed article today from the History
of Photography, Vol. 1, No. 3, July 1977, on the making of salt prints.
Author Brian W. Coe had the task of reprinting more than 600 of Fox
Talbot's paper negs for the 1997 Centenary of Talbot's death, for the UK
Kodak Museum and the Fox Talbot Museum at Lacock.
This is a great reference on salt prints as it goes through the formulas
and techniques used in the project.
Perhaps surprisingly, the finished prints, which were exposed by
mercury-halogen lamp with an actinic light output matched to sunlight, were
washed for ten minutes, then fixed in two baths of regular Kodak fixer 1:7.
The fixing time was not given, but it was said to be on the long side.
Prints were then washed for 10 minutes, then hypo-cleared, and washed
again for 30 minutes. At that point they were found to become lighter, but
drying with heat was found to improve density and color, so the prints were
first dried in a blotter, then heat dried in a flat bed dryer. That resulted
in a darker, reddish brown prints that were close to the best prints that
survived form the 1840s.
The article goes on to describe how salt prints were made from existing
period prints that did not have a negative available, but that's another
story.
Arthur
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : 11/14/02-02:40:26 PM Z CST