Planet Randy

Made an albumen print from a negative glass plate taken in the early 1900′s of a little girl wearing a white bonnet. Impressive plate – background separation from the little girl is quite good. I’m curious as to how they can get good light; perhaps those flash powder put out a lot of UV. The mottled background is due to plate deterioration exacerbated by my poor coating method.

The wife thinks it’s eerie, I think she watches too much “Haunted Collector”. So far I find it fascinating to get a glass negative that’s over 100 years old, print it the way it would have been printed back then and still get this detail today.

I finally did it – my first albumen print from my first glass negative. Many thanks to Monsieur Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard. For the longest time I’ve struggled to control the fogging brought on by long exposures and long development. I did not want to do intensification or re-development. It’s quite a balance between exposure and development to get a dense negative.

The Print

Negative density range: 2.14 – 0.64 = 1.50
Albumen: 1.5% sodium chloride with vinegar
Paper: 9×11 Canson Universal Sketch (aka. Crob ‘Art) single coated (float method)
Sensitization: 12% silver nitrate, rod method
Exposure: 5 minutes next time I’ll fire up the NuArc.

I bought a few turn of the century glass negatives from E-bay – we’ll see how those turn out next!