Paula and I have been traveling. Many days without Internet access.
No time to respond to everything.
Brief update: the silver chloride paper project is making headway. We expect to be tresting another sample soon after we return home. Things look good, but we will not allow a product to be brought to the market unless it is at least as good as the paper it is replacing.
Yes, you can make your own emulsion. But that is not realistic if you make more than a few negatives every few months.
Silver chloride emulsions are the simplest type of emulsion to make, but making it on a large scale is a serious undertaking and in the scaling up of the formula problems arise that are not there when only a few sheets are made.
Paula and I ask for your continued patience. With any luck we could possibly have paper by spring of this year.
There are other fine papers out there, but to our eyes, and to those of many others, prints on silver chloride paper have a depth to them that is simply not there, or is only very rarely there, when enlarging paper is used. Any artist wants to use the finest materials they can, those materials that allow for the deepest expression. All of Edward Weston's prints were made on silver chloride paper. Ansel Adams' and Brett Weston's best prints (Ansel's from the late 1930s and early 1940s, and Brett's prints until he begain making enlargements) were all made on silver chloride paper. Those who know these prints and who also know other prints will readily see the difference. Some may prefer looking at prints on enlarging paper. Paula and I prefer prints made on silver chloride paper. Does the paper make the art? Yes and no. Vision comes first, always. But great vision that is realized on inferior materials will not yield a work of art as deep as great vision realized on superior materials.
Michael A. Smith