I make fully handmade 1840s Adamson-era calotype paper negatives and ammonio-nitrate of silver (ANS) salt prints at a single vintage window, using only natural light and 19th-century chemistry to speak about grief and endurance.
A typical day for me involves one of two paths. I am either in prep mode or production mode.
Today, I was in prep mode. But, what does that mean?
It means that I start by cutting some paper to the proper dimension and then I balance two different activities. For the freshly cut paper, I need to acidify it to neutralize the modern day buffers that will negatively react with the 19th century chemistry.
The top three images below are examples of how a modern paper negatively reacts with the calotype chemistry if the paper is not neutralized with the pre-acidified bath. This step adds a lot of time, but there is really no way around it with modern papers. Fox Talbot and the Scots (Hill and Adamson) in the 1840s had J Whatman handmade Turkey Mill paper that did not need to be neutralized.
The negative on the second row is an example of what a good calotype looks like when it has been properly acidified.
The process is so finicky that I have to handle and process each sheet of paper individually. I see no reason in trying to take shortcuts or try and process several sheets at a time when it can and does lead to failures and undesirable results.
I soak the paper in a mild citric acid bath for 10 minutes and then wash it for 10 minutes. After the wash, I hang it to dry for at least a full day and then I load a stack of the acidified papers between clean blotter paper and flatten them under heavy glass plates.
I prepare five papers at a time because I have five archival washing trays as shown below.
Each tray has its own water supply and continually moves water across the paper. The archival tray design continuously ensures fresh water is always entering the tray and existing water is exiting.
For five papers, that means each one has to be immersed for 10 minutes and then washed for 30 minutes each. To get through the stack of five papers, it takes about 2 hours just for this step alone.
With the acidified papers hanging to dry for the next day, I can take 5 sheets that have been previously acidified and flattened and begin the iodizing step.
To iodize the five papers, I have to mix up some fresh iodizing solution (distilled water, silver nitrate, potassium iodide) and then using my coating board, I tack down a clean sheet of blotting paper. On the clean blotting paper, I take down the first sheet of acidified paper. Next, I brush the iodizing solution on the paper and ensure it has an even and consistent coating. I let the paper stand for 5 minutes and then I move it to the drying line for 2 or more hours. Then, I would my way through the remaining four sheets until they are all hanging to dry.
After they are all dried for at least two hours, I move them into the archival washing trays for four hours. Yes, you read correctly, four hours. I work my way through the stack of five papers until they are all hanging to dry for at least 24 hours.
Once they are dry, I place them in a stack between two clean sheets of blotter paper and under heavy glass plates. I leave them under the glass plates for at least 2 ore more days before I move the flattened iodized papers to my storage box.
It takes a total of 6.5 hours to iodize these five papers and then as described above, I have to let them dry and flatten before I can sensitize, expose, develop, and fix them.
If you paid attention to the math, it takes me a full workday to acidify five papers and iodize five pre-acidified papers.
This prep part of the workflow takes about two to three days per week of my time.
As you can probably relate, when I have a failure, or make a mistake of some kind, it is painful because of the time involved to prep the paper.
In the next article, I will share the details of my sensitizing, exposure, development, and fixing stages.
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