"The Surgeon's Nurse" ~ Palladium toned Kallitype

 The fifth print in the Civil War portfolio, as the ones before it, was a difficult image to print. The images are copied from 35mm b&w film, shot thirty years ago. The scenes were shot mostly mid day, leaving very high contrast images on said negatives. Even for hand coated printing, these images remain very 'hot' for printing in Kallitype. Technically, these images are contrasty enough to better scale to salt-paper printing, which is a printing out format. The image can be seen as it prints in. That format uses much more silver than the Kallitype. An 8x10 Kallitype requires 24 drops of Silver Nitrate @ 10% solution, mixed equally with the same 24 drops of ferric oxalate at 20% solution. Roughly speaking, that about 2mls of solution; 18-24 drops = 1ml [give or take] The salted paper print of that size would require 8mls of silver nitrate solution; the 48drops for each coat, and salt paper requires a double coating for a fuller scaled image, not the reddish brown flat image when using a single coating.

Salt paper printing is a printing out method of printing. No developer needed. A straight forward rinsing in a wash tray is all that's needed for a finished print, before the fixing bath. Toning is highly recommended, but should b done before fixing, after rinsing, same as the Kallitype, for best results. For those that like to watch the progress of the printing, 'seeing' the final image before pulling it from the printing frame, this is the method. Fortunately, silver remains fairly affordable. 8mls of coating per print using palladium these days would cost roughly $80 a print, just for the palladium coating.

This print, as the rest, was printed on Hahnemuhle Platinum rag, developed in sodium citrate and cleared with EDTA 3% solution, before rinsing in a flowing water tray, then toned in a 5% palladium/citric acid solution for, usually, 8 minutes, sometimes 10 minutes. At that point, all the silver salts have been replaced with palladium salts, thereby being a true palladium print. Such prints have a long history, referred to as 'poor man's palladium' print.

Palladium toned Kallitype

"The Surgeon's Nurse" 11x14

Salem, Oregon 1990