Tonal Range of Van Dyke, was RE: Actual photograph

Dick Sullivan wrote:

> In Van Dyke! You would not believe the beauty. They looked like
>very warm toned platinums. Sigfried Halus, studied with Walker
>Evans, etc" is the head of the art dept and he came by. He is a
>photographer and has taught "alt processes" and Van Dyke and he was
>stunned. He could not believe they were Van Dykes. The process has a
>very short tonal range and I believe that it is almost impossible to
>generate a normal silver neg that fits the process. I've looked at
>and made Van Dykes off and on for 35 years now and never seen
>anything quite like this. One of the students had done some close
>ups of back lit Iris flowers and they looked like the very best made
>pts. Perhaps I shouldn't be talking like this.<grin>
>
>--Dick
>

Van Dyke has a very short tonal range? Kevin must be using some very
special chemistry because virtually everyone else on the planet who
has worked Van Dyke, including this person, has found it to have a
very long tonal scale, even longer than pure palladium.

Compared to platinum or palladium printing there are issues of
permanence with Van Dyke but I never hear anyone claim that it had a
shorter tonal scale.

Sandy
Received on Thu Mar 17 10:29:06 2005