Re: new process

From: "Christina Z. Anderson" <zphoto@uslink.net>
Subject: new process
Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2004 23:08:08 -0500

> [...] this week I came across the raspberry syrup process. It was
> in the Photographic Journal from the 1850's. I didn't record how it
> was actually done (except for the page no. for future reference) but
> thought that if Photo Techniques magazine could run a Green Tea film
> development process, raspberry syrup wasn't too far behind.

Out of mere curiosity and distraction and frustration that most
photographic history literature do not discuss the historical
importance of silver gelatin process, I did a quick search for this
line of ideas and thought about where it might have come from.

In 1830's, Hippolyte Bayard of Paris was apparently interested in
making light sensitive material. He took the idea from that his father
used to "print" the pattern of stencils on ripening fruit by sunlight,
and tried to "sensitize" paper with safflower dye. I am not sure how
far he went along this direction. He changed to silver process, and he
made direct positive silver images on paper in 1840's. In the shadow
of Daguerre backed up by politics, his work got almost no attention or
money.

If the raspberry syrup process of 1850's makes additional
photosensitive material like iron, chromium, etc. it is a different
story but it might be that someone got the idea from safflower...

--
Ryuji Suzuki
"You have to realize that junk is not the problem in and of itself.
Junk is the symptom, not the problem."
(Bob Dylan 1971; source: No Direction Home by Robert Shelton)