Los Angeles herald., 1910-08-21
Photography

tablishment with a reputation to sus-
tain. He uses metal tanks, each hold
ing a dozen plates, and has them in
little wooden racks in a sink. A pyro
developer is used exclusively and, un-
like any other man / ever saw in a
professional dark room, refuses stead
lily to keep any of his chemicals in
solution. The carbonate and the sui
phite for each days work are weighed
out at the time, the two sodas dis
solved together in warm water under
trituration in mortar, the resulting
soda syrup mixed in a huge twenty
gallon enamel kettle, which is set upon
a gas stove and brought to a tenn
perature of seventy-two degrees.
why seventy-two?" 1 asked when
/ first read this thermometer
1T chills to sixty-eight when poured
into the tanks, in this weather." he
said-it was winter-"and the plates
and racks chill it further degree or
so. 1 find that seventy-two original
temperature, used within a few min
dtes after being heated, gives me ex"
actly the tonal quality and gradation
1 want"
After the temperature is secured the
solution is ladled out into the tanks,
which are marked to show how full
they must be, and then the pyro, meas
ured in a scoop, is placed on a shelf
above each tank in little glass ladies
with long handles.
Meanwhile the assistant has been
putting the plates into the tank racks
in another room. AS these racks are
brought into the tank room, the man
watching the tanks takes up the glass
ladle with the pyro in it, drops it into
the tanks and stirs it vigorously.
"You will note" said the proprietor
to me, 'that the pyro has no chance to
oxidize before the negative gets into
it, It is a fad of mine to have clean,
clear, black and white negatives, with
out the slightest trace of yellow. |
have never managed to get this kind
of negative with a pyro developer made
up and kept standing, without unduly
increasing the proportion of sulphite,
which is, in effect, a decrease in the
proportion of carbonate, thus altering
the gradations in my negatives. I use
but slightly more sulphite than car
Donate in this formula, which is my
private invention, and by putting the
pyro in but a matter of seconds be-
fore the plate, no oxidation takes place
(Which would serve to stain the mega
tive) before the negative is in process
of making"
Developing time here is twenty-five
minutes, during which time the racks
are raised and lowered in the solution
at intervals of five minutes to prevent
drifting of the image. This practice Is
not, in my opinion, as good as re-
versal of the plates, but it seems to
work we'll here, probably because none
of his negatives have great contrasts.
'I find that an acid bath gradually
coats my racks with rather dirty look
ing silver from the plates" I was
told, "but racks are cheap, and If l
don't like the silver plating I can BUY
new ones But the doing away with
the handling of the plate between de-
velopment and fixing and fixing and
washing I regard as highly import
ant in securing a negative which Is not
only free from scratches or blemisheS,
but escapes the possibility of acct
dent"
Still the tank method, but totally
different, is the idea of a New York
photographer He uses glass tanks for
his developing and stays in the dark
room during the whole time of de-
velopment. He has never satisfied
himself that he could trust the tank
for all exposures, being either unable
to grasp or unwilling to believe the
principles of tank work as laid down
by Hurter and Driffield He insists
that while the tank is the ideal method
of holding the negative during develop
ment, that is vertically, it is necessary
to watch the plates and remove each
when it is finished, instead of allowing
them all to complete development at
the same time. So he handles thirty
plates at once and slides each one into
and out of it's wide groove in the glass
tanks (Which are but glass fixing
boxes), examining them as he takes
tbauo ont and renewing them to the