I don't normally bring my personal life into the blog forum, but things have been altered forever for me. My wife spent the last two months in a hospital, from complications. She passed on October 15. One of the few solaces I have at my disposal is my darkroom; my printing. I keep printing because I know that is what my sweet woman would have wanted me to do.
As I noted in an earlier post, I have begun toning my prints in Gold, instead of palladium, which now costs the same as platinum. I am happy with the toning results, as I continue to use the gold/thiourea 1% colution; with .5gm of tartaric acid, which makes a liter of toner. I use 50ml of toning solution for an 11x14 print, which adds up to 20 11x14 prints for the liter; almost 40 prints for 8x10 prints. That makes gold affordable, offering archival print longevity of up to 200-300 years. The thiourea formula is an 'all at once' toner, affecting the lower tones at the same time as the higher tones. It is also said to be the one gold toning formula that replaces much of the silver salts, instead of coating the silver, metallic silver on the finished print. The 5% gold chloride formula is a top-down toner, starting with the highlights, working down to the shadows and blacks.
The difference I have found between a palladium toner and this gold/thiourea formula is how they affect the print image. Palladium, is a top down toner, tending to 'open up' the middle tones, and deepen shadows and blacks. It is also considered a 'warm toned' developer, being it makes a warm toned print, compared to platinum. The thiourea toner appears to affect the whites, pushing them from a low zone-8, not much texture, to a nice zone 7, showing the texture in the whites. It also deepens the dark areas, zone-4 and zone-3, as well as deepens the blacks. I didn't notice a lot of change to the middle tones, zones 5 and 6.
There is also further control over the print image, using two different developers; a cool toned, real black & white developer, using a 10% sodium acetate solution + 3gms tartaric acid/liter. It sort of mimics the platinum look, with rich blacks, although platinum has a sort of bluish black in the middle tones, the Kallitype is more of a neutral black. A combination of an acetate print toned in gold leaves a very nice color to the print. The tonal range is left to the printer. Some images are full range prints, with 8 distinct tonalities. Some, perhaps three or four tonalities, demonstrating a different feel, such as the range on a white flour, snow or fog. The blacks will be nice when you need them. For the photographers that shoot on the toe, like W. Eugene Smith, with lots of deep blacks from shadows, this formula is the one.
The second formula I use is a sodium citrate developer; sodium citrate at 20%/liter. This one is a warm toned developer, and for my eye, mimics a palladium print. Palladium printing also has two developers to choose from, a warm toned, potassium oxalate, and the cooler toned ammonium citrate. The palladium and Kallitype processes are almost identical, with a couple exceptions. One, being no need for fixer or hypo for palladium. Both use ferric oxalate for the iron binder, with the difference being palladium uses the oxalate at 27% [Bostick & Sullivan's 25%] and the Kallitype uses oxalate at 20%.
For those hand printers who work with the Kallitype, and gold toning, the prints can be made to have the tonality and gradation of the platinum, or, palladium, or platinum/palladium print, by choosing one of the two developers mentioned, and set the density range desired for the image to be printed. When I began printing, forty years ago, the grail of printing was arriving at the full tonal range of any print image. I'm not beholden to that at this point in my printing. I am now more interesting in the light within the image. Replicating the light of the scene, what I believe to be the emotional connection to any print; the light.
This print was developed in the citrate developer and toned for eight minutes in the 1% gold/thiourea toning formula. The warmth of the middle tones remain, even after toning. The portfolios I have of palladium toned Kallitype prints would be indistinguishable to most viewers, as the 'color' of the warm tones are evident in both processes.
Gold toned Kallitype
"Tombstone Marshals" 11x14
Tombstone, Arizona
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