Re: Glutaraldehyde again

Christina Z. Anderson wrote:
>

>
> One more thing: I'm still thinking about your statement that you never have
> dichromate staining in any of your step wedges. I did a series of wedges
> from pale to deep color, at same exposure times, to see the relationship
> between pigment and scale, and the dichromate stain is very perceptible in
> the pale ones and not as much in the deeper shades. I cleared half of each
> side of the 4x5 step wedge to show the comparison between the cleared and
> uncleared colors. In every one, there is some dichromate stain that has
> cleared--the color becomes cleaner and less yellow, albeit more perceptible
> in the paler shades. This is with the low dilution dichromate, too. Which
> leads me to believe that a lot of the differences you and I perceive in gum
> may relate to exposure, as I expose heavily enough to allow a good full
> spray development, but a half hour development time or less. The unsized
> paper takes an hour.

Hi Chris,

I think my lack of dichromate stain is probably related to the type of
light I use more than anything else. In fact I'm beginning to think I
was just unbelievably fortunate as a gum printer in the choices I've
made and the circumstances of my life. I live in a cool humid climate,
which I think may be the ideal climate for gum printing. I picked a
light that was cheap and simple to start with, and it has proved so
great I've never felt any need to change. When I went to buy paint, the
local store happened to carry M. Graham paint at a great discount, so I
bought it because it was cheap, and liked it so much I've used it ever
since. What are the odds of stumbling across the best paint in the world
the first time I went to buy paint. And I started with a great gum, the
Photographer's Formulary gum that's no longer available. I haven't had
any trouble replacing it with the first gum that I ordered, but again
perhaps that was just another great stroke of luck.

I doubt the reason I don't get dichromate stain and you do has anything
to do with differences in how hard we expose our prints. For example, a
couple of times a week I expose something in such a way that it has to
be developed for several hours, and sometimes by inattention or mistake
I overexpose something so much it has to develop for a day or two, but
even in these cases there simply is no dichromate stain whatever. So I
don't think that explanation works.

Sometimes I get the feeling that when I make observations about my own
experience, people think I'm making a moral judgments about other
people's experience, as if I think I'm a better gum printer than anyone
else because I don't get dichromate stain. I've said it several times
before, but will say it again: no, I don't think that. It's just simply
an observation: I never get dichromate stain.

 
Katharine
Received on Sat Jun 12 11:45:52 2004