Christina Z. Anderson writes:
For the last full year Don Nelson has been working on Kallitype, Vandyke Brown, and Argyrotype, A Step-by-Step Manual of Iron-Silver Processes Highlighting Contemporary Artists. What a great start to 2023! He finished the last jot and tittle, and the final manuscript was delivered to Routledge as of 4:50 PM today. This will be No. 12 in the Contemporary Practices in Alternative Process Photography series.
From here it goes up step by step through the publishing process, which can be laborious still, but the lion’s share of the work is done. A glass of wine is in order right now (I don’t need encouraging). Expected release if all goes according to plan is 4–9 months.
Though we don’t have a cover design as of yet, I can tell you what is in the book (since I know every jot and tittle through the editing process). It’s pretty awesome, actually, especially the toning info which I’ve not seen in print. It makes me want to dabble in kallitype for the first time ever! That means Don’s style of writing is accessible and encouraging. And in the artist pages the processes come alive.
Here’s a sneak peek at the book’s content:
Kallitype, Vandyke Brown, and Argyrotype is about photographic printing in silver on paper. These 19th and 20th-century processes provide contemporary artists with affordable ways to produce prints in silver. Prints can be additionally toned with gold, platinum, palladium, selenium, and other compounds to change the physical appearance and gain additional archival qualities normally achieved only through more expensive alternative process practice.
Kallitype, Vandyke Brown, and Argyrotype is a two-part book. Part One is a comprehensive how-to on these alternative processes. Part Two showcases the work of contemporary artists who print with these processes, accompanied by tips on their particular workflows.
Book features include:
* A brief introduction to each of the processes with key historical information.
* List of supplies and where to source them.
* How to set up the dimroom.
* Creation of digital negatives using the personal computer.
* Results of testing over 40 papers for suitability for kallitype, Vandyke brown, and argyrotype.
* Mixing formulas for sensitizers, fixers, kallitype developers, and toners.
* * Step-by-step how-tos on kallitype, Vandyke brown, and argyrotype.
* Troubleshooting kallitype, Vandyke brown, and argyrotype.
* Toning with noble metal toners (gold, platinum, palladium), selenium toners, and other suitable toners.
* Images of resulting colors from developers and toners.
* Finishing prints for presentation.
Kallitype, Vandyke Brown, and Argyrotype provides both beginner and advanced alternative process practitioners with a concise guide for these three processes with the goal to encourage more practice of the “brownprint” in contemporary photography.
Don Nelson’s work focuses on the historic landscape in contemporary times, most often buildings disused or repurposed. Nelson has been a practitioner of alternative processes since 1983 using carbon transfer, platinum/palladium, kallitype, Vandyke brown, argyrotype, and the now discontinued printing-out paper. Nelson began with large format cameras (12˝ x 20˝ and 7˝ x 17˝) but converted to digital negatives after a Dick Arentz/Mark Nelson Formulary workshop in the 1990s. Nelson’s prior publications include Carbon Transfer Printing (with Sandy King and John Lockhart), and a chapter on Kallitype in Digital Negatives with QuadToneRIP.
(PS when is FB going to allow italics?)
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— with Don Nelson.
NOTE FROM DON: I use both analog( 8x10 film capture) with scan to digital negative, and digital image capture as well.
