Re: oil-print-glyoxal??

Ryuji Suzuki wrote:
>
> From: Katharine Thayer <kthayer@pacifier.com>

>
> > This morning I've been asked privately to produce detailed
> > information about these conversations, who I talked to and whether I
> > kept a written record of the conversations and so forth.
>
> Did the questioner have anything useful to add to the discussion?
> Or did s/he say why that piece of info is important?

No, and no.

> I personally don't think figuring out the details of exactly what they
> do is important or relevant to what we are doing here.

I agree with you that very little of this discussion provides a useful
answer to Henk's question, which was: what about oil printing, where the
point in dichromating and irradiating the gelatin is to create a matrix
which functions in such a way that the swollen gelatin repels the oil
and the hardened gelatin accepts it. What about the unhardened gelatin
that remains in the highlight areas after the print is inked, was his
question.

The only ways I can think of to harden the gelatin after the inking are
unacceptable, because either of them would require getting the oil print
wet, which I expect would make a complete mess of it.

Since people have been making oil prints for a hundred years or so,
there should be data available from photography curators about whether
the unhardened gelatin in highlight areas poses a problem for longevity
of these prints; I guess I'd leave it to them to have the last word on
Henk's question. The rest of us, as helpful as we're trying to be, are
just guessing.
Katharine
Received on Mon Dec 27 17:28:24 2004