A market for handcoated/small batch silver chloride paper?

df cardwell said:

PE

The work you've done is impressive, wonderful, and valuable.

I WISH that there was more interest in a warm paper like Athena, but it has been gone for so long there are few who would even remember. The potential to coat our paper is important. The closer a method comes to a repeatable and consistent process, the more likely it becomes that more image makers can take advantage of it.

Click to expand...

df,

I'm hearing your statement as meaning handcoating one's own paper to spec. If so, the process is way past potential. Note that PE says 'most' formulas use real nasties for warm tone paper - not all. With a minimum of fuss and muss, or expensive equipment or lead, mercury or cadmium, I am making all the paper I could realistically use. It's gotten to the point of being absolutely predicable and very consistent.

I keep saying this to the point of tedium, but the conversation about emulsion making needs to turn away from the assumption that 'we might be able to do this someday'. It can be - is being- done now. We can hold conversations about whether or not we want to roll our own, but it is no longer true to think of any of this as theoretical.

http://www.thelightfarm.com/Map/ContactPaperDev/MapTopic.htm#WarmHeartRecipe1

http://www.thelightfarm.com/Map/ContactPaperDev/SilverGallery/EmulsionThumbs.htm

Denise

I agree with you.
I disagree with you.
I just don't know.

What YOU are doing works for YOU.

But for me ? It isn't a theoretical problem, it is a REAL problem.

I CAN do it. It is a process with POTENTIAL, like energy in a capacitor, but I don't know whether I can realize the potential.

For me, I CAN learn to do it, I CAN do it, but the process may not fit my NEEDS.

It is NOT about the process, or whether YOU can get what you need from it.

It is, for ME, about ME.
Or rather, it is about being able to serve my clients in a timely fashion.

I admire your work, I admire Lightfarm. But I'm just a working hack compared
to you. If I couldn't serve my clients on their terms, folks who aren't art buyers,
normal folks who think they are just getting pictures from me,
not objets d'art, I would go mad trying to make up emulsion
the day before a shoot. There are several wonderful processes that are not suitable
for my blue collar, workaday photography. I don't know that Emulsion is suitable, or is it not.

Whether I'd want to coat paper with emulsion, and whether it is possible';
these are NOT the only questions. Is it VIABLE for an individual's needs is the BIG question.

df,

You're absolutely right (OR, at least I agree with you, which come to think of it, may not actually be the same thing ) I have been thinking of handmade emulsions in the context of 'fine art'. I'm 99% working hack. I rely on Ilford Multigrade and TRI-X for most of my paycheck work, so I have no excuse to only see the artsy side of the issue.

Thank you very much for taking the time to let me know that you believe you could make emulsion if you wanted to. That is really my only concern - that folks know there is an option and that it is available today. And, that someday, if you really get a craving to work with Athena or her identical twin again, you might just be able to.

d

I believe Michael had originally stated, either on forum or to me, that the new azo would be priced the same as the old stock he sold..about a buck a sheet.
I haven't read every post here, but are you going to produce your own stock Ron and market? Also, I understand you have been advising or are involved with Michael and Paula's new product..

So, I would just like some clarification.

Blaze;

I am neither going to market a product, nor am I advising M&P in any way. I have answered questions directed at me as fully as possible based on the fact that there is no working arrangement.

PE

To get back to the original question - I can make albumen paper for about $1.50 per sheet. That does not take into consideration my time. Thus, I''d be willing to pay somewhere in the $2 range. But, as finding an Azo replacement has dragged on for several years, I'm finding I like the alt processes better and better and am less interested in buying an Azo replacement. And I'm someone with a lifetime supply of amidol sitting in the closet.
juan