Where has the Barry Thornton website gone?

[fotofundi]

Does anyone know what has happened to the www.barrythornton.com website? I have been buying developer and alkali stop bath and fixer from there for years but when I go to the site now I get some stupid clothing company. I have cleared all my cookies, and tried on my Android tablet but it makes no difference, I still get the same site.

 

[Ian Grant]

The guy selling Barry's formulae etc Peter Hogan has stopped making chemistry, he may have been maintaining Barry Thornton's website.

Ian

 

[pentaxuser]

That's a pity. I used to look at it myself. I had a vague feeling that it was maintained in some kind of "archival machine" The info may still be somewhere in the ether as the saying goes but I have no idea how it may be retrieved.

Just as a matter of interest, how does anyone who uses an old site belonging to someone long since dead ensure that he secures the information to prevent this kind of thing?

pentaxuser

 

[pdeeh]

Just as a matter of interest, how does anyone who uses an old site belonging to someone long since dead ensure that he secures the information to prevent this kind of thing?

pentaxuser

There are a few bit of software which can copy (download) the whole of a public website, maintaining its structure and including all documents, links, images and whatnot.
So you can take a "snapshot" of a site yourself, and keep a copy on your local machine.
Most simple sites like the old Thornton one can be kept like this.
It can be a bit less successful with more advanced sites.

Google "HTTRACK" for the one I use.
There are lots of these copiers around, httrack is just one, and they should be available for all platforms (win/lin/mac)

 

[howardpan]

Try this: http://web.archive.org/web/20161109201820/http://www.barrythornton.com/

 

[darkroommike]

Assuming it's your website, it's only secure for as long as you pay the rent, once your lease expires the site is back on the market. If it's someone else site just hope old copies are residing on one of the Internet time machine sites (I think that's what they are called). I have started downloading any PDF files I need rather than assuming the PDF will be there the next time I need it. A lot of Kodak info is gone although Alaris has stated it will be back someday, and another good old site for developer formulas was "Jack's" at jackspcs.com also gone.

 

[Wayne]

I've used httrack to successfully copy and save websites. It can be tricky to set it up right but sometimes its a breeze depending on the site

 

[Ian Grant]

and another good old site for developer formulas was "Jack's" at jackspcs.com also gone.

I had a very abusive email from Jack not long before he closed his website accusing me of stealing and re-posting formulae from his website.

I pointed out in my reply to him that in fact I'd worked as a photo-chemist in the 1970's and 80's and had notebooks of formulae collected during that period plus data-books from all the major manufacturers and only refereed to primary sources. The formulae in most US books are riddled with mistakes first made in the Photo Lab Index, Steve Anchell's Darkroom CookboOk 3rd ed is the first US book to have been cross checked with manufacturers publications and many formulae were corrected.

Ian

 

[Wayne]

Steve Anchell's Darkroom CookboOk 3rd ed is the first US book to have been cross checked with manufacturers publications and many formulae were corrected.

Ian

Hmmm, I want a refund on my first edition then

 

[pentaxuser]

Try this: http://web.archive.org/web/20161109201820/http://www.barrythornton.com/

Well done and thanks. That's exactly as I remember it and I had thought I had bookmarked it as that site but when I went to the site which I had shortened to barrythornton.com I got the same clothing site as the OP mentioned

pentaxuser

 

[Ian Grant]

Hmmm, I want a refund on my first edition then

From Morgan & Morgan who perpetuated their own mistakes over decades Every one trusted them !

Ian

 

[Gerald C Koch]

Tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse.

 

[fotofundi]

Damn! That's VERY BAD news. Is there anyone still able to produce Barry's formula or are they now lost for ever?
I have used Precysol for years and have fine-tuned it to produce just the negative I like. The thought of having to start over experimenting with different developers or having to mix my own does not appeal, apart from the difficulty of getting the raw chemicals here.
I still have some Precysol EF that will keep me going for a while, but have run out of alkali stop bath. Does anyone have a formula?

 

[Wayne]

Unfortunately it looks like jackspcs.com disallowed archiving so its really gone. But it looks like everything on Barry's site is preserved. For now.

 

[pentaxuser]

Unfortunately it looks like jackspcs.com disallowed archiving so its really gone.

Unless disallowing archiving has a positive benefit for the website owner or prevents a detrimental affect on said owner, you'd wonder why this is done. Maybe the answer to this lies in the website's owner attitude to Ian Grant.

pentaxuser

 

[ektachrome]

I have a complete archive copy of the site, which I could put up on my website if anyone wants this?

 

[Wayne]

Unless disallowing archiving has a positive benefit for the website owner or prevents a detrimental affect on said owner, you'd wonder why this is done. Maybe the answer to this lies in the website's owner attitude to Ian Grant.

pentaxuser

It helps prevent well behaved robots from seeing things the owner doesn't want them to see. Maybe the site owner was worried about copyright or something, hard to say. Its also possible they didn't really know what they were doing when they set up their robots file. I only know enough about it myself to be dangerous.

 

[Down Under]

The site is still there. I've had it bookmarked for a decade or longer,and just clicked the tab, and zip! I was in.

There is a new note added on the home page, that chemicals are no longer being sold.

Just a thought. If the web site owner hasn't any plans to manufacture the developers in future, could pentaxuser be persuaded to apply his charisma to convince the owner to list the Thornton formulas as a thank you to those who have bought from him in the past ? If we want to discuss "attitude" then let us not forget that the Thornton site also publishes both the Stoeckler and the Ansel Adams formulas and fair is fair.

Also let us not forget Valentine's Day is on Tuesday...

I have been happily using the Thornton two bath formula since the '90s and as I recall the other developers were just as good for their specific uses, 'tho postage to Australia cost the earth and made them largely uneconomical to purchase.

Good news re the Anchell third edition as well. I can now update my antique first edition with a new copy.

 

[ruilourosa]

Formulas could be released... that would a good valentine´s gift!

 

[fotofundi]

That indeed would be a very welcome Valentine Gift. I believe his widow has the rights to the formulas so it would be up to her to release them into the public domain, or publish them as a memorial to Barry, perhaps renaming them as 'Barry Thornton Exactol' etc.
There were so many changes and corrections to the first edition of the Stephen Anchell book that it made a book in itself! I half expected the author to offer a trade-in on first edition for a substantial discount on the 2nd or 3rd, but such magnanimity was just wishful thinking!

 

[fotofundi]

It appears that some of Barry's developers are still available from The Photographer's Formulary Inc. in the US which probably means the formulas are tied up with licencing etc. Current US postal charges are horrific ($22.50 for a kit of 100ml), and Exactol Luxe is a liquid, so that knocks it out as far as getting supplies from TPF to Europe are concerned.

 

[Down Under]

Many of us on this site live overseas, and are aware of horrific US postal charges. I gave up buying pretty well anything photographic from the USA about seven years ago as the OzBuck was so low, the ridiculous exchange rate made paying for good(ie)s in US$ uneconomical for me. As I write it's about US$.73/A$1 and going by Ebay postage charges to ship gear across the Pacific the US PO seems to be indulging in highway robbery, so I won't be buying any Thornton formulated soups from TPF.

As I now run a minimalist darkroom, I have shifted to mostly compounding my own B&W film and print developers and a few other more specialised brews with scales and bulk chemicals and I nowadays buy only fixer and C41 or E6 Tetenal kits in liquid form. Bulk chems can be purchased at quite reasonable prices from an outfit called Vanbar Photographics over in Melbourne and so far shipping has not been too expensive. (Film prices in AUS are too high and I now buy in bulk orders from several Asian suppliers.) Home brewing the Thornton two bath, Stoeckler's and Beutler's developers is easy and quite cheap, also Kodak's D76, D72 and D52. Greater availability of older types of emulsions from suppliers such as Adox, Rollei, Ferrania etc means in the not too distant future I will get renew old acquaintances with a few of the fine old 1920s developers many Old Timers in the photo trade were using in the 1960s when I first got interested in the darkroom, so it seems one wheel in the photo industry has come round to a full circle. Like Ian Grant, I kept detailed notebooks with formulas, tests and even sample negatives from various films, over the past decades and I look forward to getting into those ancient notes again.

Indeed, as one poster has noted, mixing one's own from raw chemicals isn't for everyone. Many sources for the few chemicals needed for the Thornton's two bath mixes can be found almost anywhere, not only from photo suppliers. Old Kodak chemicals turn up regularly in garage sales or secondhand shops in Australia, and I've not yet bought any that were too old to be used, except one batch of ancient glycin that had turned black, and that was given free to me anyway. One bottle of almost prehistoric potassium bromide in my chemical box is dated 1917. I used some for a D76 mix I made about a year ago and it worked, at least I think it did. Results were OK, but that may have been just luck.

At the very least, I can go to ground and make two pots of my favorite Arabica blend at breakfast time, one for me and the other for my Jobo system...

My thanks to all posters who have passed on some very useful information in this thread.