Processes

“You don’t take a photograph, you make it.” Ansel Adams

Platinum / Palladium

This alternative process was used by photographers such as Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston in the early twentieth century and, more recently, by Robert Mapplethorpe and Irving Penn, among others.

Often considered the summit of the alternative processes, the platinotype was patented by William Willis in 1873, after experiments by various photographers and scientists going back to around 1830. During the First World War platinum prices soared, as the metal was used as a catalyst in explosives. Photographers turned to other processes, gelatin silver among them, and ready-coated platinum papers soon disappeared from the market. When the process was rediscovered in the 1960s, it was embraced again for its immense tonal range.

Its main advantage is that the finely divided platinum and palladium sit in the fibres of the paper, so the image lasts as long as the paper itself. It is a slow contact-printing method that needs strong UV light and a negative the same size as the final print.

The paper is brush-coated with a mixture of ferric salts, which are sensitive to UV light, and chloroplatinite and/or chloropalladite salts. Once dry, it is exposed to UV light in tight contact with the negative, then developed in potassium oxalate, ammonium citrate or another suitable developer. The final image is made of platinum and/or palladium, with a tone that ranges from cold metallic to warm brown depending on the mix of metals.

Gelatin Silver

My method is a personal variation of the Zone System developed by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer: pre-visualising the final image before the film is exposed. That way the whole process is under control, from exposure to the final print.

I use a Toyo 45 AII large-format view camera. It gives great control when shooting and great image quality, thanks to the size of the negatives (4×5 in) and the quality of the lenses.

Each negative is exposed according to readings taken with a hand-held meter on different parts of the scene, allowing for the luminance and contrast of the subject. The film, Ilford Delta 100, is developed by hand, sheet by sheet, in a Pyro developer (PMK by Gordon Hutchings). Development time depends on the contrast of the subject.

The paper, Ilford MG FB Warmtone 255 g/m², goes through two developers: Kodak Selectol Soft, which works on the highlights, then Kodak Dektol, which strengthens contrast in the shadows.

The prints are made by hand on double-weight fibre-based paper and selenium toned. Selenium replaces part of the silver with a more stable metal: it extends the life of the print and slightly warms its colour, especially with this paper. The prints are air-dried, then spotted to remove the small marks left by dust on the negative.

Conservation

In 2009 the Getty Conservation Institute analysed my platinum/palladium prints as part of a research project on photographic processes. Its findings: very low residual iron, no organic impurities or remaining oxalate, very good processing, and images that will remain stable for a very long time. The prints examined are part of its Reference Collection of Photographs and Photographic Materials, available to researchers and students.

Full Getty Conservation Institute report (PDF)

All prints are hand-made by the photographer.