The photography of our grandparents |
| All information presented in this document is for informational purposes only and can be found at www.galeon.com. It is always interesting to know how, more than forty years ago, amateurs and professionals produced their own photographic material. Most of the products can be found at QUIMICS DALMAU S.L. |
Development of silver chlorobromide paper. It was preferred by amateurs because, without the need for a laboratory, they could quickly print their negatives with red light. The general rules for treating these papers were as follows: the developer was based on hydroquinone and metol and other products, which were the most abundant; they only gave beautiful black tones with the pleasant matte collodion hue, toned with double toning. The exposure of these papers was as follows: daylight, two meters from the balcony, one to four seconds; electric light, 16-candlepower lamp, forty centimeters away, five to fifteen seconds. Very good black tones were obtained if the exposure was precise and then a development was given that had to last from sixty to seventy seconds with a bath at fifteen degrees. The formula of the bath was as follows: Saturated solution of anhydrous soda carbonate (Solway soda):
To use the bath, the Solway solution and the other solution of sulfite, hydroquinone and metol were mixed in equal volumes; this mixture had to be made at the time of use; it had to be worked under red light. The tests, once taken from this bath, were introduced into the fixer bath, which could be according to this formula:
The use of an acidic hardening bath between the developer and the fixer was advisable. Here is the formula:
Once the test was developed, without washing, it was placed in this bath, where it would remain for two or three minutes; it was taken out, washed well and passed to the hyposulfite, which in this case could be a 5 per 100 solution. The fixing was verified in 10 minutes, and after this the tests were washed for one hour in running water. |
Development of Caltón paper.– This paper was one of the so-called development papers, and depending on how it was worked, black or brown tests were obtained. This paper was especially indicated for the work of professional photographers. It was manufactured based on a special emulsion and should be used in the laboratory using yellow light; four to six seconds of exposure with artificial light were enough to obtain pure black; for it to give warm tones the exposure had to be greater; the most used developer for obtaining pure black tones was the following:
For use, one part of the developer and one part of water were taken. The development would last one minute. For obtaining very warm tones, the following developer should be used:
The paper would be given an exposure five times greater than necessary to obtain a black tone with the hydroquinone-metol bath already mentioned. The development would last three minutes and then the tests would be washed, which would be fixed in the following bath:
In this bath, the tests were left until the unexposed silver bromide was completely eliminated. Afterwards, they were washed and put to dry in a ventilated place. The chloro-bromide papers, and especially some of them, could give diverse tones of black, although generally of a more pleasant hue than those given by the bromide paper. But to satisfy the capricious demands, especially of the amateur, attempts were made to prepare papers that could simply give very diverse tones from reddish brown to dark green. This paper, in which the sensitive material was essentially constituted by silver chloride, did not find great acceptance because it was not easy to obtain the desired tone. However, Dekko and Pan papers still found supporters; mainly those who had some practice in their use found in these papers a convenient means of changing the tone of the image at will. |