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Edward Weston's Notebooks and his Formulas

Mustafa Umut Sarac

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Location
İstanbul
Format
35mm
Its been a while to starting study Pyro developers .I read Viewcamera article on pyro experts thoughts on technology and I just impressed.
If I am not wrong , film gelatin hardens with the reference of its illumination and this creates valley and mountains in film.

I had Edward Weston book and I had no idea about his use of Pyro. I read he has notebooks. Are they published ? And I learned he has a special Pyro ABC formula plus Amidol developer written in his notebooks. What was the color of his negatives ? Is there a scan at web or somewhere ?

Can you give me these formulas ? Which film and paper he was using ?
Do changing film change the stain color ?
Is his era gelatin formulation same with today ?

Thank you ,

Mustafa Umut Sarac

Istanbul
 
Things have moved on none of the emulsions Weston would have used are around today, they were thick emulsions which tanned well.

Yes different emulsions stain and tan differently, colours vary. tanning is what causes the ridges & troughs.

Steve Anchell has a section in the 3rd Edition of the Darkroom Cookbook on the various Weston's developers, Edward, Brett & Cole. Edward Westonm just used Kodak D1 -ABC Pyro more dilute, and increased the amount of developer so 3A+1B +1C + 30 water, instead of 1A+1B +1C +7 water - tray or +11 water -tank.

Ian
 
What is the thickest gelatin film today ? Is Plus X thick enough to tan ? Can anyone share Kodak D1 ABC Pyro formula or Do anyone sell the exact developer kit ?

Thank you Ian , Tünaydın.
 
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The notebooks of Edward Weston were edited by Beaumont Newhall and published by Aperture. My copy is 1981. I see on Amazon.com that it was published again in 2005. It is great reading about Edward Weston, photography in his day, his life, beliefs and much more. I do not believe that it is currently being published, so you will need to search for a used copy. http://www.abebooks.com is the best world wide site I know.

John Powers

This is a quote from Amazon.com

“The Day Books of Edward Weston

For more than fifteen years Edward Weston kept a diary in which he recorded his struggle to understand himself, his society, and his art. His journal has become a classic of photographic literature. Weston was a towering figure in twentieth-century photography whose restless quest for beauty and the mystical presence behind it resulted in a body of work unrivaled in the medium. "It was as though the things of everyday experience had been transformed . . . into organic sculptures, the forms of which were both the expression and the justification of the life within...He had freed his eyes of conventional expectation, and had taught them to see the statement of intent that resides in natural form." --John Szarkowski Foreward by Beaumont Newhall. Paperback, 6.25 x 9.25 in./310 pgs

Aperture 1981

Product Details
Paperback: 512 pages
Publisher: Aperture (June 15, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0893814458
ISBN-13: 978-0893814458
Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds “
 
You need the least hardened film today, Acros tans very well as do the EFKE emulsion but others stain better or rather more noticeably. Fortepan 200 & 400 (pre WWII Super-XX & Tri_xx derivatives) were the last old syle emulsions.

ABC Pyro D1 is here, I think its in the Chems here on APUG as well, also read Sandy Kings articles on staining developers on the same website, his Pyrocat HD is a modern approach to staining developers and comes highly recommended.

Ian
 
John , Ian , Thank you very much. Great information.

I have a Rollei 35 S with a Sonnar lens and I am worrying about its quality and investing lots of money to these chemicals. Sonnar is a texture lens , good at 6 meters or faraway building walls or chaotic garden shots. I really couldnt understand the different qualites between one portfolio to other at Flickr for this camera. Some extremelly sharp and contrasty , some dull.
I think answer is very fresh film , precision of exposure , excellent development and direct the camera to mid tones of daylight , not dark , not bright. May be I need to invest zone system but some say Pyro do not work well with these systems . Any recommendations ?
And I saw many vibrating , flue shots , may be the shutter button may be the ergonomics. So the faster shutter speeds looks as a must with tight aperture.
So the camera is good at texture , is it a pyro process ? May be Weston diluted formula helps to catch overall sharpness.
Any idea ?
 
The Rollei 35 S is an excellent camera indeed. I have used PyroCat-HD with 35mm using Tri-X and Classic Pan 400 which I believe is one of the think emulsion types. The Tri-X was outstanding however the Classic Pan was way to grainy. Ilford FP-4 is also a good film for PyroCat-HD.

For 4x5 I use Efke PL 100 / Adox 100 with PyroCat-HD and the results are excellent.

I plan on being in Istanbul next May (2011). Maybe we can meet up.
 
Eric ,

Its a pleasure.I hope I will be around and be your tourist guide in Istanbul.

You can pm me about the details , your interests.

It has been quite a shock to find Ian - He is in Turkiye now - , Ken Lee and Sandy King photograps in pyro.

Some of them are SUPER. I liked the Sisters picture very much. WOW , Your pictures are Excellent also.

Can you please post few Rollie 35 S pictures here.

I will be very happy.

Umut
Istanbul
 

Thank you very much. I will have to dig around and see if I can find some negs shot with the 35S.
 
Dear Mustafa,

pyrocatechol ( catechol ) also tans well and is available in Türkiye. i'm printing from a roll of tmax 100 at the moment and the hardening ( obvious etching/engraving effect on the emulsion side ) is as good as any of the other films i've used it on ( fuji acros, tri-x, tmax 400, plus-x and panf50 ) though the staining not as apparent as other films ( though some say you should always print to evaluate stain ). i do remember efke 25 staining very well....

if your worried about the quality of the sonnar rollei35, shoot a test shot on a tripod. you will see that alot of the things you mentioned can be attributed to user error and not the camera itself . i had the tessar version and it was great with tmax 400.

görüşürüz.
 
Dear el wacho ,

Do you prepare your own pyro developer by yourself ? Do you use Pyro HD formula ? Do you develop one roll with all expenses prepaid ?

I never use Tmax , when there is still Tri X and Pan F.


Its scary to flickr sonnar galleries. Some portfolios invites us and some portfolios are terrible. This lens is not a forgiving lens compared to Leica and highlight easily fly. I saw this habit at lots of different portfolios.

I suspect this is partly due to outdated overused color negative developers at the lab for my films.

It is hard to use a twisting lens when trying to untwist when twisting the hard to turn distance ring.
When the lens twisted a little bit , it refuses to take pictures or go to bulb mode.
If this is german engineering , I scare from it.

As You and I said before , I need a tripod , fresh film , excellent spot meter and an excellent developer.

This lens do not color seperate very well , whatever the overall tone of the picture , it casts and attracts the colors to one reference.

It is blurry not sharp as Leica and 40 mm makes absurd perspective games.

It is not good engineering , it looks good as camera collectors picture.

But it catches extreme colors at dim light and very powerful at more than 6 meter distances at graffitiss or debris or chaotic garden.

I took the wildest tree tissue I have ever seen and most natural foliage with it also.

It is a very bad camera for ordinary shots and specialized at some strange sum of inputs.

Yes , this cameras habit to stain the picture could be used as good bw contender.

Viewfinder have a mirror coating and darkens the image and it is not possible to see all borders of viewfinder with a eyeglass.

Mustafa Umut
 
Mustafa,
you are too hard on the camera!!! treated with a little love they really produce wonderful results (i shoot black and white mainly ). its a camera that rewards someone that shoots by the sunny f16 rule and is good at estimating distances.

yes, i mix pyrocat hd ( the metol version ) and use sodium hydroxide ( lavabo asit ).

"Do you develop one roll with all expenses prepaid ?" ? anlamadım
 
Benim için bir film banyo edermisin ? Bir göreyim sonrada ben de senin yardımınla bunu karıştırırım yada sen belirli bir ücret karşılığı belki bana yardım edersin , çünkü tartım yok .
Neredensin ? Ankara mı ? Adın ne ? Ben Weston ın bir linkini göndereceğim buraya , orada ABC var , asıl onu istiyorum , ya abi makinenin ne zaman uzaklık halkasını çevirsem bir sürü problem çıkıyor , vallahi evlat acısı gibi
 
There are no thick emulsion films manufactured today. Super XX Pan was the last one and was discontinued in 1994.
 
Edward Weston's ABC formula is given in "The Book of Pyro" by Gordon Hutchings. Weston decreased the alkali in the "C: solution by about 25% over the Kodak formula.

Stock A:
Water, 32 oz
Sodium Bisulfite, 1/4 oz, 35 grains
Pyro(gallol), 2 oz
Potassium Bromide, 16 grains

1 gram = 15 grains

Stock B:
Water, 32 oz
Sodium Sulfite, 3-1/2 oz

Stock C
Water, 32 oz
Sodium Carbonate (mono), 2-1/2 oz

To Develop:
Water, 30 oz
"A" 3 oz
"B" 1 oz
"C" 1 oz

Cheers, Steve
 
I have never used Pyro but from my reading medium or large format negatives would be best. Check out Photography Formulary for staining developers

http://stores.fineartphotosupply.com/-strse-54/ABC-PYRO-FILM-DEVELOPER/Detail.bok

Graded papers may work better with pyro negatives. Unless you have to tame bright highlights, Pyro seems fussy.

Weston film and paper are long gone. We have better materials today. Anyone wanting to use Pyro may want to read:

Photographers' Formulary Book: Book of Pyro by Gordon Hutchings
 
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Classic Pan 400 was Forte 400, so essentially derived from pre-WWII Tri-X

Ian
 
c6h6o3 said:
There are no thick emulsion films manufactured today. Super XX Pan was the last one and was discontinued in 1994.
Click to expand...

Fortepan 200 & 400 were thick emulsions and my last boxes have just about expired, they wee made up until about 4 years ago, based on Super-XX & Trix-X (pre WWII the factory was then Kodak)..

Ian
 
Ian Grant said:
Fortepan 200 & 400 were thick emulsions and my last boxes have just about expired, they wee made up until about 4 years ago, based on Super-XX & Trix-X (pre WWII the factory was then Kodak)..

Ian
Click to expand...

Did you try water bath development with them?
 
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