> >DATE SENT: 17-MAY-1994 13:42:22
> >
> >There is a relatively new book out on kallitype printing:
> >
> > "Making kallitypes: a definative guide"
> >
> >by Dick Stevens. Boston Focal Press, c1993.
>
> Once you read this book, you'll be convinced that is has the
> "advantage" of being 10 times more complicated than platinum and on
> top of that the prints aren't permanent...
>
> Luis Nadeau
I've not seen this particular book: it seemed rather expensive, so
I wanted to check it out first. This is almost enough to put me off.
Vandyke brown or salted paper, for which you can find instructions in
William Crawford's "Keepers of Light" or Catherine Reeve and Marilyn
Sward's "The New Photography" seem to me to be alot simpler than
kallitype, and to involve no fancy chemicals like ferric oxalate. I've
never made kallitypes, and can't understand the popularity of all its
different variations, unless the quality of kallitypes is markedly
superior to vandyke or salted paper.
This might be an appropriate time to ask about Mike Ware's new argyrotype
process, an iron based process involving silver sulphumate. Sulphamic acid
is pretty cheap; but the problem I've come up against is its use of silver
oxide instead of silver nitrate. Although the oxide has a slightly higher
silver content than the nitrate, because it's manufactured in an
analytical grade, as against the nitrate, which must be widely used
commercially, there only seems to be one source in Australia at about FIVE
times the price. Can anyone suggest an alternative source? I wrote to
Photographer's Formulary asking for a catalogue but didn't recieve a
reply. Can chemicals be shipped out of the US?
Has anyone tried argyrotype? The instructions are in the British Journal
of Photography for 13 June 1991. It's designed to overcome the permanence
problems associated with kallitypes, and appears to have everything you'd
want in a silver based process.
Philip Jackson
pjackson@nla.gov.au