Albumen Prints
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Albumen was the most popular method of printmaking from abut 1860 until about 1900. The papers were hand made, most of them in France and Germany, by coating writing paper with a mixture of eggs whites and salt. Photographs show lines of European women floating the paper in trays of egg whtes and hanging them to dry.
Commercial manufacture of albumen paper ceased in the 1920s as Kodak, Ilford, Agfa and others made silver gelatin paper popular.
If you have photographs from the late 1800s, there's a good chance these were albumen prints. Properly processed, these prints retain their wonderful color, sharpness and contrast. However, many of the photos from this period were made for speed and longevity, so many of them have faded.
I made albumen paper myself from 100% cotton Crane's writing paper. I coat it in the same kind of mixture of egg whites and salt, and hang the indivitual sheets to dry. I heat the sheets to cure them.
When making your print, I take a previously prepared albumen sheet and coat it with silver nitrate. This coating is applied by hand with a brush, so that individual variations are achieved. The paper is then placed in a contact printing frame along with the negative, and exposed to untraviolet light.
The negatives are all 8x10 and are made with a view camera. The prints cannot be enlarged.
After exposure, the prints are washed, then toned with gold. The toning process also introduces individual variations to each print. Then the prints are processed using modern archival methods so that they will not fade as earlier prints sometimes did.
The variations in coating the silver and in processing mean that no two prints are exactly alike, although they are very similar. The color can vary from a dark brown to a more reddish brown in the shadows, and from a creme to a bluish-grey in the highlights. In looking at the scans on the Internet, the process of scanning and the setup of each person's monitor also introduces variations, so the prints will vary a bit from what you see on your screen.
Carey's Royal Typewriter
Friday, December 28, 2007
My mother took me up to her attic over the Christmas break. She had a typewriter she wanted me to get rid of. She said she thought it came from WMAZ-TV.
I took it downstairs and examined it. As the ribbon was tangled, I pulled off the ribbon cover and found the name Stan Carey underneath. Stan was the anchor at WMAZ-TV (Channel 13 in Macon, Georgia) from the late 50s until the early 1980s. He also played organ and had a number of recitals on air. This was obviously Stan's newsroom typewriter. Beside the name are US Patent Numbers and the wording that the machine is a product of Litton Industries.
But what is it? I'm not familiar with Royals, and the typewriter database lists the serial number in the 1920s. Obviously this is a much later machine - one from the era Stan was at 13. The serial number is A7V - 11- 1228394. The first numbers are probably the model number and the width of the carriage.
Update - Jay Respler of Advanced Business Machines says the typewriter is a Royal Model 470 made in July 1972. The back show that it was made in England. Here are some more photos.
The machine surprises me - it has elite type. I would have thought that any newsroom typewriter would have had at least pica type - the larger type is easier to read.
Happy Birthday
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Birthday greetings to my all-time favorite soap actress, Mary Kay Adams. I first saw her as India on Guiding Light more than 20-years ago. What a great character, well portrayed.
Where have I been since last posting? Busy. I've aquired a bit of photographic equipment, and I've begun testing Foma film. I had been using Fortepan 400 and Efke PL100. Forte has gone out of business, as developers are converting the plant into condos, and Efke simply has too many quality control problems. I'll post test results soon.
Music Update
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
My neighbors have formed bands and are busily practicing guitar (loud) in the late after noon. It's pushed me to turn from wholly electronic music to learning to play a real instrument again. I got out the bass trombine, but was unispired. I pulled out the soprano sax. It still leaked and badly needed a repadding as it has since the early 70s. But the Internet is a wonderful thing. I looked up the old thing and learned that it's a Martin Handcraft made in 1927. A lot of folks like them, and I've liked the little good tone I've been able to get on it. So, it's off to Sarge for a rebuild.
What will I play for the month or so the horn will be gone? How about that old tenor recorder that's laying behind the TV set? Do I remember those fingerings? No, of course not - not even all of Color My World. Not even all the notes on the song "Shy Wednesday" that I actually recorded on the thing (no, you've never heard it). But thanks to the magic Internet, I can take a refresher course online.
Now, all I need to do is find where to get a hat like Rashaan Roland Kirk.
Developer Tests
Monday, February 26, 2007
Spent the weekend testing two developers - 510 Pyro and Pyrocat PC. The 510 Pyro surprised me, showing in the test negatives, the ability to handle scenes from below SBR4 to SBR 15 or so. We'll see how that tests out in the field over the next couple of weeks. The Pyrocat PC seemed to top out at about SBR 10.3. Both of the tests were with Extreme Minimal Agitation, and both still gave rather short development times. Some folks claim they allow their negatives to stand for a half hour to an hour. My times are more in the 12-15 minute range, and the extreme contractions are more like 8 or 9 minutes.
I found an advantage of my hugely heavy C-1 metal camera yesterday. There were high winds and Jeff didn't even try to shoot, Doug made only one exposure. They have nice, lightweight wooden cameras. The heavy C-1 didn't blow in the wind.
510 Pyro tests
Friday, February 23, 2007
I'm sorry to see that Jay DeFehr, creator of 510 Pyro and other developers says he's had a personal tragedy and can't practice photography. I hope things get better for him.
Cooler temperatures in the winter mean I can experiment with developers at temperatures that more closely approximate what folks in most of the rest of the world use. My pipes run through my roof, so for most of the year, my developing must be done at 80F. There's simply no practical way to consistently reduce the water temperature. Except for winter.
Last night I developed Adox PL100 BTZS test negatives in 510 Pyro at 72F. I'll get the results posted over the weekend. I'm also planning to make development tests with Pyrocat PC - the Vitamin C/P-Aminophenol version of Sandy King's Pyrocat HD. Advantages of this version are that the chemicals dissolve in propylene glycol, so the stock solution should last indefinitely.
Accounting for small business
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
If you're a small business, you may find a new, free product from Microsoft helpful. It's Microsoft Office Accounting Express, and it appears to be a full featured, easy to use accounting program for a small business. The free version, available here, is limited to use on one computer, but that's probably not a limitation to many businesses.
Welcome to the new site
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Welcome, folks, to the new site. I've mostly copied over my old, photography only site, but I've added a few things - particularly music. Plans include finally getting the photo gallery in shape, and uploading some new compositions. At some future point, the goal is to combine the photographs and music into single works.
Photography took another blow this month. Forte had produced photographic products in Hungary since 1922. It closed its doors last week, apparently because the riverside property the plant sat on was far too valuable as a site for condos. I, of course, had just in December decided on Forte paper as a replacement for Kodak's discontinued Azo. The paper problem is very serious. It seems that as of now, only Ilford and Kentmere in England are reliable paper sources. Foma in the Czech Republic may be. Efke in Croatia is questionable - I've had problems with the coating on Efke film lately. Deciding on a paper has been one of the chief holdups in moving forward on the photo gallery.
As for music, things seem to be set. The software is now upgraded to an E-mu Emulator X2 synthesizer, lots of E-mu sounds, Garritan Personal Orchestra for orchestral sounds, and Garritan Jazz and Big Band for additional acoustic instruments. The X2 allows me to sample my old Korg synthesizer (it's developed dead keys) so the sounds are available. I've added lots of custom sounds to the mix.
Last week's big project was writing and sequencing the score for a video project on the Vive Verde living office building project in Lake Worth, Florida.
Plus, take a look at the myspace page for The Christal River Band, a group I played in back in the mid-80s. Guitarist Rhea Sama set up the page and you can listen to four of the songs we recorded back in 1985.
Charis Wilson Weston's Smith Corona
Thursday, October 26, 2006
The above is a crop of a somewhat famous photograph taken by Beaumont Newhall of the L.C. Smith & Corona typewriter used by Charis Wilson Weston to write the book "California and the West." I'd love to find a typewriter like this one.
Note the carriage return lever is on the left, the seven keys above the standard four rows of keys, and the key tops themselves - they appear to be plastic rather than glass. Has anyone seen a typewriter like this one?
Dare
Friday, July 21, 2006
Following a dare, here's me with my small camera
Photo by Terry Casey.
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