From: Steve Shapiro (sgshiya@redshift.com)
Date: 09/21/02-12:19:29 PM Z
----- Original Message -----
From: <PhotonTom@aol.com>
Subject: Re: Pyro : "Aged" stock solutions.
> I recall in the Hutchins' monograph that he likes to use aged PMK stock
> (keeping some a year or so and mixing some into fresh). I am about to
move
> a lose darkroom facilities, but thought of the following: The aging
process
> is one of oxidation of the pyro/metol and if it is indeed a benefit, how
> about using a very-very dilute solution of, say, Potassium Permanganate (a
> powerful oxidizer) and on a quantitative basis pre-age (partially oxidize)
> the stock... maybe this would make it a PMKP ?
> In the meantime I am just about to trash all my HC-110 stock and keep
to
> the PMK (might play with Rodinal some later).
>
> Cheers,
> Tom Crowe
> Thomas Crowe Studios-Photographic Arts
> "Lost in East Tennessee" (Returning to Southern California)
>
While I'm not sure about your reasoning about the validity of how aged PMK
stock becomes 'better.' But, what you said about PMK aged might be named
PMKP struck a chord. For, in the history of photography, looking at the
evolution of chemistry used, the early photographers in the field would use
the Pyro without getting an image to resolve, by inspection, and would 'toss
in' some metol, or Amidol and created PMK, or PAK. So, yes, renaming the
formula is a good representation of how you rendered your negative, perhaps
to makr on the back of the print. I have a stamp that shows a blank for the
processes that I use for the back of my final prints that I offer for sale.
S. Shapiro
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