From: Richard Sullivan (richsul@earthlink.net)
Date: 03/13/03-10:43:23 AM Z
Yes Pete,
I wrote it. I confess. T'was dear sweet little me that did it.
I think it might be worth mentioning what Carl and I wrote in the
introduction to our book, The New Platinum Print.
We call it the Holy Grail Syndrome or HGS for short. I've been marketing
hand coated photographic materials for nearly 25 years now, 23.2 to be
exact, and made my first alt print, a gum print, in 1971. I had bought a
volume of the Encyclopedia of Photography for a dime at a garage sale. It
was volume EFG! Never did get the hang of ferrotyping prints but the two
paragraphs on gum suckered me in.
Over the years we have had to contend with the Holy Grailers. These are
people who have worked out a way to make prints that works for them. Good!
But they take it one step further and proclaim it is the >>ONLY<< way to
make the prints. I've had so-called experts on platinum printing write me
and say that 3.5 gm of pd + 1.75 gm of NaCl should really be 3.55 pd to
1.73 NaCl!
In many cases the HGS'ers are also complexers. They often have a tendency
to make the process more mystical and in the process more complex. We had
one printer placing his ferric oxalate solution under a pyramid to keep it
fresh. One person claimed his cesium FO Ziatype prints were slowing down
all the clocks in his house but I suspect he was joshing me.
Carl and I said our book was just a starting point. Christopher James in
his superb alt book also quoted me on this by reminding people that the
Ziatype as it stood was a only a beginning and that the door was wide open
for further discoveries and exploration.
When Carl and I were doing the experimental work for the book in the
darkroom Dick Arentz joined us. Arentz was also writing his own book on
platinum printing at the same time. Is it strange that two teams writing
"competing" books might share information? No. Arentz's book is
sensitometric in orientation while ours is not that heavy into step wedges.
Besides we (B+S) sell both books to the same folks as often as not. Arentz
allowed us priority on the Ziatype process since Carl and I developed that
process from groundwork laid by Guisseppe Pizzighelli in the 1890's and
felt we should have first publication rights on that but that is a
different thing entirely
I find it exciting that people like you Pete, are developing new processes.
Yours is really a "gum" based process but sufficiently different enough to
have a new name. The new ground work Melvin is doing is also phenomenal and
though it is traditional "gum" in the basics, it too may deserve a new name.
I love the traditional gum print and drooled over a box of Demachy's at the
Société Française de Photographie that Christian Nze so graciously led
Melody and I to when we were in Paris in the first week of October 2001.
http://www.sfp.photographie.com/
I have my own way of making gum prints, but no, it is not the Holy Grail:
http://www.bostick-sullivan.com/Technical_papers/substrat.htm
and made some gum prints in the early to mid 70's:
http://www.bostick-sullivan.com/gum.htm
and would love to get back to making them when I retire.<grin>
But there is room for more varieties of gum printing to be developed.
One of the biggest joys of alt is that you can do it your way.
--Dick Sullivan
At 08:57 AM 3/13/2003 +0000, you wrote:
>Judy,
>
>Get your facts right girl I did not write this Dick did. Very Sad !
>
> >
> > On Thu, 13 Mar 2003, pete wrote:
> >
> >> Somewhere back in my old brain cells is a memory trace
> >
> >>> using plain water color pigment and dichromate to make gum prints and I
> >>> believe it was by reference to Zimmermann. Water color pigments in tubes
> >>> used to use -- and some still do -- gum Arabic as a binder. Enough in
> >>> there to make gum prints. Now that I am hearing about Zimmermann
> successes
> >>> I believe my failure in early 70's was that I did not take him at his
> word
> >>> and use too much gum. This even though I had reduced the amount of gum I
> >>> had been using by 80% or more and proceeded to use the blotters. It
> was hot
> >
> > I have got a distinct memory trace of the hoo ha about the
> > Anderson/Scopick "gum-pigment ratio test", or rather my pointing out that
> > it was nonsense. Its premise, that you need a certain (large) amount of
> > gum arabic added to your (tube) paint to prevent staining, seems now to
> > have gone down the memory hole. But at the time, Pete, you said you'd
> > "thought about it" and decided it was right. On top of which, saints
> > preserve us, you forwarded my heresy to Scopick himself & then his reply
> > to the list... (Not a pretty sight.)
> >
> > From what I've read, in his day Zimmerman got a mixed reception, and the
> > fact that a process was not generally adopted is often a major indicator.
> > But on top of science, chemistry, reason, first-hand testimony, and the
> > rest of "the literature," it surely puts paid to the great GPR test...
> >
> > J.
>
>Oh dear
>
>Pete
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