December 2005 Alt-Photo-Process-L: cyanotype rex

From: TERRYAKING@aol.com
Date: 12/12/05-12:26:32 PM Z
Message-id: <1f8.17ba5a46.30cf1ad8@aol.com>

Peter Moseley very kindly sent me a copy of a posting from
Charles of Portland Oregon(see below).

Articles about the cyanotype rex process and the chrysotype rex process have
appeared in the British Journal of Photography among others. There is also
an article on the View Camera web site at the moment. I demonstrated both
these processes at APIS 2004 in Dunfermline, APIS 2005 in Santa Fe in July and
at the Object Glass of Science Conference at the Oxford Museum of the History
of Science in September this year. Michael Maunder also demonstrated his
approach at the Oxford conference and Dunfermline.

The Alternative Processes International Symposium 2006 will be combined with
the Object Glass of Science Conference and will be held in Oxford in July.
APIS 2007 will again be in Santa Fe and APIS 2008 will be held in Bratislava
in Slovakia. Those wishing to attend the Oxford conference should let me know
soon

Examples of both processes can also be found on my web site

_www.hands-on-pictures.com_ (http://www.hands-on-pictures.com/)

There is also a full page cyanotype rex, intended to look like an
impressionist painting, in another article by Michael Maunder in the current edition of
AG.

The proceedings of the Oxford conference with articles by both Michael
Maunder and myself will be in the special 150th edition of The PhotoHistorian, the
journal of the Historical Group of the Royal Photographic Society, which
will be published early in the new year. The cost is likely to be around $30as a
hard copy, as a CD or as a pdf. Let me know if you would like to receive a
copy.

Descriptions and instructions for both the chrysotype rex and the chrysotype
rex wil also be available as a pdf in January also at a cost of $30 each.
Could you please let me know of you would like to acquire the password which
will enable you to download the pdf.

The reason for the delay in distributing details of these processes was that
they appeared to be so revolutionary that I wanted to ensure that they
really worked .Photographers and printers in both the UK and the US have now made
fine prints using these processes and scientists both individually and at the
Getty Conservation Institute in Santa Monica have given both processes a
health check.

The processes are revolutionary to the extent that I have, for example, made
an in camera negative with cyanotype rex process and made a print from that
negative.

The background to this is that I was conducting experiments going back to
the times when processes were invented to see what we would have done. We then
went back to the work of the original inventors, for example Sir John
Herschel's paper on the iron processes which was published in 1842. We called this
retro-invention. The method produced not only these two processes, but
significant conclusions in relation to the 'first photograph', the Palo Alto
experiments and early collodion printing. One of which was a method of producing
platinum prints that do not 'dry down'. There will be pdfs for some of this as
well.

Michael Maunder was also looking at some of these processes from a chemical
standpoint; this produced very fast coatings of high educational value. I
came up with the cyanotype rex and the chrysotype rex.which produce 'pretty
pictures'.

What I sought t for the cyanotype rex was a fast emulsion but one that also
produced a full range of tones, subtlety of gradation and the ability to tone
beautifully. For the chrysotype rex we wanted full tonal range, ease of use
and an inexpensive print.

We achieved it.

Terry

Last October someone posted a summary of an article in a British
magazine named AG. The summary offered enough information to make me
interested but not enough to try it so I bought the magazine. The article
by Michael Maunder says that a sheet of paper coated only with a solution of
ferric ammonium citrate can be much faster than the traditional cyanotype
mixture of FAC and potassium ferricyanide. To take advantage of this speed
one developes by brushing on a solution of potassium ferrOcyanide--NOT the
usual ferric salt.
I finally located some of the fairly obscure ferrous salt and tried.
Several times. I emailed Mr. Maunder who could not find anything wrong with
the process as I described what I did. He suggested that I might be using a
better quality of paper and that I should try plain old copy paper, which I
did. No luck. I could give details of what Maunder says to do but I
hesitate to offer the list information which I can't make work.
Has anyone ever read anything about this process? Is it related to the
much praised but NEVER described cyanotype rex I suspect that is a
non-existant beast.
Charles Portland Or

Terry King FRPS

RPS Historical Group (Chairman)

_www.hands-on-pictures.com/_ (http://www.hands-on-pictures.com/)

Moderated Discussion Group

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2. A man's reach should be beyond his grasp or what's a heaven
for.(Browning)
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Royal Society).
5. If ignorance is bliss, why are not more people happy ? (anon)

Terry King FRPS

RPS Historical Group (Chairman)

_www.hands-on-pictures.com/_ (http://www.hands-on-pictures.com/)

Moderated Discussion Group

Post message: artaltphot@yahoogroups.co.uk