March 2006 Alt-Photo-Process-L: Subject: Re: source for glutaral

From: TERRYAKING@aol.com
Date: 03/06/06-11:58:54 AM Z
Message-id: <2e3.36f0083.313dd25e@aol.com>

Chris

I replied first of all to the point that struck me most in your e mail.

I have chrome alum and formadehyde and glyoxal on my studio shelves but I
found very quickly that I did not need them whatever the books may have said..
The chrome alum is such a pretty colour !

One thing that does become clear when reading earlier manuals, from the
1850s onward, is that the people who write them often have no practical
experience and that even when they do they still love to obfucscate. Recent
experience has thrown up professors of photography with no understanding of the
relationship of exposure to development, international gurus whose expertise of
alternative processes is based upon the authoritative writings of other experts
over the last century when a simple test would have shown that they were
wrong, and a general discounting of technical ability among certain teachers who
completely disdain alternative processes.

I started with Bockingford, which does not need sizing but I now use
Fabriano Artistico for nearly everything sizing it differently for different
purposes. I do not use very white papers as I do not like the enhanced white.

The 260 Bloom gelatine I use does not appear to be slimey. For solution
prints I dry the gelatine quickly and then humidify it before coating..

. I teach my students never to believe anything anyone ever tells them,
including me, until they have tested it for themselves. Socrates taught this well
over 2000 years ago (Nullius in Verba (Horace), 'Take no man's word for it'
(motto of the Royal Society).

Hope that we can meet soon perhaps at APIS 2006 which we are holding at
Oxford Unoversity in September. A paper on sizing over the last century and a
half could be interesting.

Terry

In a message dated 06/03/2006 16:23:06 GMT Standard Time, zphoto@montana.net
writes:

Well, Terry,
You're on. Since I have to place an order to B and S today, I will order
some of their super duper gelatin that doesn't require a hardener. Then I
will do some side by side tricolor gums and see if it works as well as glut
hardened grocery store gelatin. With tricolor where the print goes into the
water several times or more, with extended soakings (a difference of several
hours water development vs. 20 minutes), I'm not convinced, but hey, tests
will show it to work or not, and if you save me from having to harden
gelatin I'll bless the ground you walk on and dedicate my next book to you!

In my research through everything on gum I could find, including the BJP
from 1858-1922 (called something different in 1858--Photographic Journal I
think) the use of hardener was always the case. Well, not exactly...in the
very beginning no size was even recommended. Then size was recommended, and
some of the books from 1898-1901 recommended arrowroot paste or gelatin with
no mention of hardener. Shortly after gum's reintroduction with Rouille
Ladeveze and Demachy c. 1894, 1900 for instance, the use of chrome alum
and/or formaldehyde was hand in hand with gelatin pretty much always. This
was even with the ossein and 250 bloom super duper gelatins (Nelson's??). So
I am assuming, perhaps wrongly, that there was perceived a need for the
hardener after practicing without sizing or sizing/hardener for a number of
years

Thank HEAVENS as I was doing this research, I formulated categories of
topics and chronologically typed in my info, so that a quick skim of the
topic (sizing in this case) shows the way the process morphed over time.
Very cool.

I was verrry interested in the sizing issue because when I started gum
printing again in full force four years ago, I attempted not to size the
paper. I almost got away with it on Fabriano Artistico EW but not enough to
satisfy me visually in side by side examples of FAEW unsized and sized.
That is when I just bit the proverbial bullet and size always now. (Mind
you, Sam Wang doesn't size FAEW in any case).

I use unhardened gelatin for salt prints, and had the students also use
unhardened gelatin for inbetween their cyanotype/vdb prints (just because I
had some mixed and on hand), and certainly can see that for any one coat
process it wouldn't be necessary to harden gelatin. It was slimy. But so
what if it gets jello-like in the water and sloughs off? You're not doing
another printing on top.

I can surmise that the first layer of dichromated gum will in fact harden
some of the gelatin sizing, but not in the highlights where it is most
needed to prevent stain. But, I'll try it anyway...
Chris

----- Original Message -----
From: <TERRYAKING@aol.com>
To: <alt-photo-process-L@usask.ca>
Sent: Monday, March 06, 2006 3:52 AM
Subject: Re: source for glutaraldehyde & Which gelatine ?

> It remains that a good hard photographic gelatine enables one to make
> alternative process prints without using hardeners.
>
> Both B&S and Silverprint sell one.
> Try some experiments.
> Terry

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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1. An excellent thing is as rare as it is difficult.(Spinoza)
2. A man's reach should be beyond his grasp or what's a heaven
for.(Browning)
3. Frustra fit per plura quod potest fieri per pauciora.(Occam's razor or
'Keep it simple!').
4. Nullius in Verba (Horace), 'Take no man's word for it' (motto of the
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

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