handling glass plate negs

[lee_nadel1]

i have started to work with my locak historical museum ther are 100's of glass plates from 4x5 to 12x10 i have worked with plates years ago and would apreciate any sources fro handling cleaning and printing that are contemporary. thanks for your help.

[doremus_scudder1]

Lee,

I worked at a similar task some years ago and found the following:

Glass negs handle pretty much like regular film negatives except for

the fact that they can be extremely fragile. This is especially

important when printing since modern negative carriers won't work and

some enlargers have so much spring tension in the negative stage that

they can easily break a glass neg. I had to fabricate my own

carriers, different sizes with masks, out of stiff cardboard and foam

rubber. If you need to refix, remove stains, etc., the usual standard

chemistry works just fine. I had a nifty turn-of-the-century drying

rack that folded flat for storage, and, when in use, held the plates

vertically like a little bookshelf tipped toward the back at a 45-

degree angle. Only the edges touched. Perhaps you have or can build

something similar. Hanging them up to dry is out of the question. Be

careful too, that you aren't removing retouching that you don't want

to remove when you reprocess old plates! Many of the old studio

portraits were routinely retouched, usually on the emulsion side with

graphite or dyes of some kind that can wash off. Some have indelible

ink retouching and, if this is on the emulsion side, can't be removed

without taking the emulsion with them. I found that many portraits

have a lot inmpact with the retouching removed since the wrinkles and

skin defects that were smoothed away add much to the personality of

the persons, usually pioneers, etc., in the images.

Secondly, glass negs are almost always extremely contrasty due to the

old thick emulsions and the printing-out-paper processes that were

used then, and therefore, difficult to print well on modern enlarging

paper. I had good luck with grade 1 paper and dilute Selectol Soft

developer used in conjunction with a water-bath technique. The print

is develped 30 seconds with agitation in the Selectol Soft diluted

2:1 to 5:1 and then placed in a water bath for a minute or so

(sometimes with a little Kodalk balanced alkalai added to help the

developer activity) with no agitation. This cycle is repeated until

the desired contrast is reached (usually 3 to 6 cycles). Basically,

this slows down the development process so that you can stop

development before completion (like we all do with film) and control

the contrast, and is similar to the water-bath developing process for

negatives described by Ansel Adams in "The Negative". Of course, for

each different development scheme, i. e., varying numbers of cycles

and/or developer dilution, the print exposure will change. You have

to experiment. Printing out paper, which is now available again

(Bostick & Sullivan, etc.) is another way to go for printing the

older negatives and has the advantage of being "authentic" since POP

materials were all that was available early in the century. This

stuff is "self-masking" so to speak and eliminates the contrast

problem entirely. The disadvantages: you can only make negative-size

prints, and you have to set up for the POP process and purchase the

usually more expensive materials and chemicals. The toner is

especially important.

Still another technique for extremely hard to print plates is to make

an internegative with less contrast and print that. I did this only

rarely. The prints made directly from the old plates seem to have

more life and immediacy than the second-generation prints.

Sorry this is so long, but I hope it helps a bit. I'm sure there are

some photo-archivists that could help you much more than I. (Perhaps

one or more of you out there can add something, or update and correct

any questionable information that I have imparted!)

Regards, ;^D)

[dick_fish1]

Twenty years ago, the Northampton Historical Society got a Ford

Foundation grant for me to print their extensive collection of glass

plates. These were almost all 8x10, and so I made contact prints using

Kodak Azo paper - hundreds and hundreds of 'em. I processed archivally

and toned them in selenium. It was a several-year undertaking, but I

was able to advise how to store the plates [rag preservers from Light

Impressions] and I also advised NOT to clean them. The National

Document Center in Andover can advise how to clean them, but it's

still better to leave them alone.

[tony_brent]

The Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland Ohio should be

able to give you some good information.

 

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