Albumen printing

Barney

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Wayne
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Good Morning

I had a happy hour last night looking through photographs from 1850-1890, a lot of the images were fantastic resolution and remarkable clarity.

Has anyone tried printing in this fashion?
 
Hi Wayne

No haven't tried printing in that manner, however if you have an interest Victorian photography you used to be able to pick up glass plate slides/negatives at antique fairs quite easy.
 
Hi Wayne

No haven't tried printing in that manner, however if you have an interest Victorian photography you used to be able to pick up glass plate slides/negatives at antique fairs quite easy.
Thanks for that,

I will keep My eye out!
 
.... or you could buy new dry glass plates from Lost Light Art in Slovenia and create your own.
Another rabbit hole,

still not caught a rabbit and I feel I have been down dozens. :)
 
.... or you could buy new dry glass plates from Lost Light Art in Slovenia and create your own.
Web site is flagging up as unsecured Kevin
 
You could try J Lane dry plates. Analogue Wonderland site lists them. Plate holders available from Chroma cameras (@stevelmx5 on this site).
 
Web site is flagging up as unsecured Kevin
So I see. This route works fine though
Web site is flagging up as unsecured Kevin
So I see. This address takes you to the dry plates shop and works fine:

https://zebradryplates.com/product-category/dry-plate-photography/zebra-dry-plates/

I have bought from there without any problems.

This is a link to the results I got:

 
I've recently photographed three photo books of albumen prints from 19th century Japan. Here are a couple of pictures from one album. Firstly, as photographed, secondly AI enhanced in Photoshop.

Buddhist priest...

20250711-5925 copy.jpg


1753185403565.jpeg

Ainu...

1753185466959.jpeg

1753185493450.jpeg

I prefer the originals as the Photoshopping has altered the colours quite a bit. Mind you, the originals are very faded hand coloured black and white prints, so the colours aren't true to the colourists intents probably, which, in any event can't necessarily be true to life.

I'm not sure whether these should be posted here as they are recorded digitally?

By the way, although I'm the photographer, the pictures are copyright Bolton Library and Museum Services.
 
I've recently photographed three photo books of albumen prints from 19th century Japan. Here are a couple of pictures from one album. Firstly, as photographed, secondly AI enhanced in Photoshop.

Buddhist priest...

View attachment 458519


View attachment 458520

Ainu...

View attachment 458521

View attachment 458522

I prefer the originals as the Photoshopping has altered the colours quite a bit. Mind you, the originals are very faded hand coloured black and white prints, so the colours aren't true to the colourists intents probably, which, in any event can't necessarily be true to life.

I'm not sure whether these should be posted here as they are recorded digitally?

By the way, although I'm the photographer, the pictures are copyright Bolton Library and Museum Services.

They are quite remarkable Peter
 
So I see. This route works fine though

So I see. This address takes you to the dry plates shop and works fine:

https://zebradryplates.com/product-category/dry-plate-photography/zebra-dry-plates/

I have bought from there without any problems.

This is a link to the results I got:


What a wonderful album

You would be hard pressed to reproduce that detail with any camera!

Thank you for sharing that
 
The album itself has an amazing lacquered cover.1753192721441.jpeg

Couple with two small children and fish!

I'm very privileged to be able to photograph things from the museum archive. Sorry if this particular reply to the post is entirely digital, I would love to try some of this on film but the digital path ensures that I will get the shots.
 
I have to say that this museum project is very exciting. For instance, there are lots of uncatalogued photographic items in the archive, Daguerreotypes for example. I've never photographed a Daguerreotype so maybe I will get the chance one day.

For the time being I'm more interested in Oriental stuff, although last Friday I took a series of photographs of a newly acquired 21st Dynasty, maybe, coffin, 3000 years old. Amazingly a lot of the painted decorations are well preserved and legible (not to me 'cos I don't read hieroglyphs!), so it might be possible to identify the coffin's owner.
 
Exciting Indeed!

I will never forget my Saturdays when I was seven or eight, I used to get 50p off my mum to go roller skating at Nevada then dodge it and go to the museum for nothing and get a pie at the bus station on the way home.

The most vivid memory is of the death mask of Tutankhamen, it was amazing and so vivid to actually touch it, it was probably a reproduction, but I didn't know any better and was awe struck for years.

I sill have a papyrus painting of it on my wall!
 
Hi,

I have managed to find some glass negatives.

Looking forward to their arrival!

The one with the sugar daddies on looks nice.

Glass Negatives.jpg

Glass Negatives 2.jpg


Now all I need is a darkroom. LOL
 
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Might be of interest if you (Wayne) want to see those stereograms in all their glory!
 

Might be of interest if you (Wayne) want to see those stereograms in all their glory!
Hi Nod,

that suggests that they could be positives rather than negatives.
 
They do look more like positives than negatives in your shots.
 
Very interesting, stereo magic lantern slides, I'm very jealous. I do a bit of stereo photography, sometimes analogue sometimes digital. I mainly use a Pentax beam splitter, although I have a Sputnik 120 stereo camera as well and a stereo 5x4 Wista camera. The beam splitter comes with an adapter to fit it on lenses with a 52mm filter thread so it works on quite a few cameras I own. It's most effective with lenses of a focal length of around 50mm on digital full frame or 35mm film. I took a couple of shots last week with the adapter of a new museum acquisition, a 3000 year old Egyptian coffin but I shalln't post them here because a) they are digital, b) the room I was photographing in was very tight so the pictures aren't that great, I couldn't get a view of the whole coffin. After you have scanned them, if that is what you intend to do, send me the scans and I'll print you off some Holmes stereo cards which you can view using a stereoscope. The London Stereoscopic Company sells a cheap hand held viewer, no affiliation. If you ever want to sell them!!!!
 
Peter they are remarkable,

most are labeled. some of the views of the Swiss alps and Venice are outstanding, there are also views of Huddersfield, Isle of man, Whitby the list goes on and on.

I can just imagine a fancy dinner party around the turn of the century and them being passed round to amazed guests.

I wish they were negatives, it would be entirely feasible to up a little business printing and selling them
 
The chap who took these must have been very well traveled, its no mean feat to photograph Tangiers and the cathedral at Cadiz in 1911.

Most are hand written but I cant find a signature.

I must find a way of transferring these to Negatives, the men and boys of the village of Aurland in Norway is spectacular. The current population of the village may never have seen photographs of their grandparents and great grand parents.
 
Your profile says you are from t'North. If you are close by you could bring them here and we can scan them on my Epson 700, invert them and maybe print some stereo cards. It sounds like you want to print them darkroomly but it would be possible to print the inverted scans onto film to make internegs.
 
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