Hi: Salted paper prints would make a wonderful school project. The chemistry happens right before your eyes - its astonishing.
Salted paper is a printing out process. You can see the image forming on the paper as it is being exposed. The image forms in a purplish color as it exposeses. When it develops the purple changes from purple to a mottled orange, as it drys it gradually changes from the mottled orange to a nice warm toned brown. You could turn this into a chemistry lesson and have the students figure out what is happening chemically at each stage. In the sun it prints out in a few minutes. Your students would likely consider this to be "very cool" . Because its UV sensitive all the prep work can be done under incandescent lighting. You could have your students make their own cameras - process their own film, make their own paper and make their own prints. One of the best references is James Reilly's book The Albumen & Salted Paper Book. This is out of print. Fortunately it has recently been put online at http://albumen.stanford.edu/library/monographs/reilly/ This is very comprehensive and may provide more information than students want to deal with. You may want to try one of the general alternative process books. I have heard very good reviews of the recently published The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes by Christopher James. though I haven't seen it myself Its at photoeye: http://www.photoeye.com/templates/ShowDetails.cfm?RecordID=11771 Failing this there is always the classic "Keepers of the Light" - its long out of print but should be in a library near you. Silver Nitrate is expensive at artcraft chemicals http://www.artcraftchemicals.com its ~ $60.00 for 100 grams. That is enough to make almost a litre of the siver nitrate solution. You would likely be able to sensitize at least 50 8x10 probably more with this. It costs no more than standard photographic paper would. You could also buy a kit from photographers formulary, bostick &sullivan, etc etc... Hmm you could even use ortho film from freestyle ( http://www.freestylecamera.com ) and Dave Soemarko's LC-1 developer.( http://members.aol.com/fotodave/Articles/LC-1.html ) You mix LC-1 in two parts so one can alter the pH of the developer. Changing the pH changes the contrast of the negative. Another project Gord On Mon, 15 Oct 2001, Chuck Flagg wrote: > "Much the same can be done for many of the alternative processes. Salt > prints are the "next easiet". They are a gorgeous warm brown tone. > Developed in water - they must be fixed in a dilte fixer and washed." > > Gord > > Can you suggest some good information or sources for"next easiet" Salt > Prints? I'm looking for a new project for my high school photo classes. > They sound very interesting. > Chuck Flagg > > > > _______________________________________________ > Pinhole-Discussion mailing list > Pinhole-Discussion@p at ??????? > unsubscribe or change your account at > http://www.???????/discussion/ > --------------------------------------------------------- Gordon J. Holtslander Dept. of Biology hol...@duke.usask.ca 112 Science Place http://duke.usask.ca/~holtsg University of Saskatchewan Tel (306) 966-4433 Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Fax (306) 966-4461 Canada S7N 5E2 ---------------------------------------------------------
