What B&W Paper Did Ansel Adams Use?

I'm curious to find out what B&W paper was Ansel Adams' favorite? Anyone know?

I did a Google search, and it seems Oriental Seagull fiber based paper was used by him, but I'd like a more specific answer if possible.

Thanks for any info.

Everything. I think Ilford at the end. Each print is as he said a performance. He dodged and burned each print. If he was alive in his prime today he would be in heaven with LED Split grade printing, closed loop systems.

Bottom line closest would be a neutral or cold tone DW fiber paper, like what Ilford, Forte and others make. Mostly he used graded papers but modern VC papers are awesome. He would be using selenium toner for the blackest blacks and permanence.

The final round of prints were I believe made on graded Ilford Galerie paper fiber dw. Ilford has discontinued this paper. Variable contrast is now the standard.

I believe he used Dupont Velour Black, back in the Day (50's).

Ansel Adams made photographic prints for over 50 years. He used a lot of different papers.

Vincent Peri said:

I'm curious to find out what B&W paper was Ansel Adams' favorite? Anyone know?

I did a Google search, and it seems Oriental Seagull fiber based paper was used by him, but I'd like a more specific answer if possible.

Thanks for any info.

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He used several dw fixed-contrast papers,Yes Gallerie but also Ilford and much Kodak(often to test it for or with Kodak). But,don't take the wrong turn here. He would be able to print brilliantly on almost any paper. It's the printer not the paper who does the magic.

mshchem said:

The final round of prints were I believe made on graded Ilford Galerie paper fiber dw. Ilford has discontinued this paper. Variable contrast is now the standard.

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Galerie is still available in grade 3 link

bdial said:

Galerie is still available in grade 3 link

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That's the paper I'd like to try, once I get my darkroom set up again (3 months?). I used it back in the late 70s/early 80s. Beautiful paper!

bdial said:

Galerie is still available in grade 3 link

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I stand corrected. Grade 3 Ilford is, I believe normal contrast so would be a good choice. I remember reading here or maybe on the large format site that Galerie was being phased out? Not sure exactly. Looks like Seagull and Foma still offer grades 2,3,4.
Toning graded paper may be more straight forward. The old Forte VC Polywarmtone paper would split tone. Where the two (hard and soft) contrast emulsions would react differently. I loved the effect but it was tricky.

Vincent Peri said:

That's the paper I'd like to try, once I get my darkroom set up again (3 months?). I used it back in the late 70s/early 80s. Beautiful paper!

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Everything has been reformulated to eliminate anything that is deemed harmful or feared by the EU, California or EPA. Hopefully it will be as you remember. My favorites were Kodak Medalist and Kodak Ektalure. I never needed anything other than normal contrast paper. I may have some Galerie from the 80's, . I'm a bit of a pack rat.

Way back before the turn of the century I did a series of 8X10 prints on Ilford Galerie paper. I used the same 4x5 negative on each grade and developed them in straight Dektol, straight Selectol Soft, and different ratios of each developer to come up with intermittent contrasts between the two extremes. Then I read something (by Anchell or Kachel?) that said Selectol Soft holds no comparison to mixing up your own Ansco 120, so I mixed up a batch and was blown away by a major jump in print quality compared to Selectol Soft. "Try it and you'll never go back" is what the article said, and it was right.

Point being, I had a slam-dunk set of reference prints to compare other papers and developers.

On a holiday in the 1990's I saw some postcards with B&W nature shots of amazing quality so I hunted down the artist craigrichardsphotography.com in Banff. When Craig said he was printing on Ilford Multigrade my jaw hit the floor! I remembered variable contrast papers from my days in a small town newspaper darkroom years earlier, and that stuff was crap.

So, having discovered Ilford Multigrade IV fibre based glossy paper was capable of fine quality prints I set forth on more testing. At about the same time Kodak had "gone all in with digital" so I disavowed myself of all their products (except for selenium toner) and with the experience of mixing developers from scratch under my belt, began by testing Ansco 130 as a harder developer.

I didn't like how much 'pop & sizzle' there was to Ansco 130 in my work, and had been reading about the keeping qualities and magic mojo in Glycin, so started experimenting a bit. What I came up with is was what I call 12/15 Developer https://www.photrio.com/forum/resources/12-15-developer.123/ which I felt was, with Ilford Multigrade IVFB toned in selenium, every bit as good as Iford Galerie.

All I can say is, people can have an opinion about this one way or the other, but you'll never really know unless you try it.

I'm not much of a glory hog and don't normally stick my neck out like this (first time I've referenced 12/15 in 13 years) but thought it was relevant to the OP's question.

mshchem said:

The final round of prints were I believe made on graded Ilford Galerie paper fiber dw. Ilford has discontinued this paper. Variable contrast is now the standard.

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Galerie Gd 3 is still available.

Ian

AA used just about every paper that was available at the time. At one point he seemed to print on Kodabromide 2 and 3, then much later Seagull, and later Galerie , in the 50s Ansco. What I don't recall seeing a reference to is GAF who had purchased ANSCO. In terms of fixed vs variable contrast, I have seen only a vague reference to using polycontrast in sort of split printing tech. In terms of a favorite, he printed from the 20s to his death in the 80s, papers came and then were gone.

Thanks everyone for all the replies. I found them very informative.

There is no Seagull graded anymore, is there? I keep hearing conflicting info on this.

-Jarin