Watkins' albumen prints

[csant]

Hello,

my question in a separate thread most likely passed unnoticed (and probably also was out-of-place there):

I couldn't find details on Carleton E Watkins' printing and darkroom technique (besides a generic knowledge that they were albumen prints). Are any details known?

[BrianShaw]

I don't know for sure, but take a look at the Getty web site: www.getty.edu

They had a Watkins exhibit earlier in the year and I believe they discussed his printmaking.

[unkgowa]

I know he used a specially made 18" x 22" camera and many of his photographs were made using the Wet-Plate Collodion Process..

[Drew Wiley]

Quite a bit has been published about Watkins. The Oakland Museum has an impressive collection of his work. Much of the time he was funded by the railroads, who
wanted to promote tourism in the West; and they provided him with a caboose-like
rail car which served as his darkroom. For his work in Yosemite he had a portable darkroom tent, plus a considerable entourage of mules and helpers to get around. Wasn't like those of us who simply backpack around with our gear. There was a lengthy biography printed by SFMMA a few years back, when they held a major retrospective, but I sold my copy because it has just too much art-jargon curator BS
in it without any solid analysis of how he actually did things, and the reproductions were too small to do his actual prints justice.

[Greg Blank]

I've seen some of his work, there was a photo exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of Art, quite a few years back on photographers of the West. I like Watkins and his views, he like me worked as a Surveyor I believe. The large prints I saw were unfortunately seemingly faded. I would guess that the problem was possibly the results of poorly fixed imagery. Remebering back to my photo history class I believe it was common practice to make one print from a negative (Which were collodion wet plates) and the scrape off the emulsion and reuse the silver once the print was dryed and filed.

What is interesting to me is how many original works of Various early photographers I have seen, that the reproductions are "better in some way or another" than the orignal prints.



Hello,

my question in a separate thread most likely passed unnoticed (and probably also was out-of-place there):

I couldn't find details on Carleton E Watkins' printing and darkroom technique (besides a generic knowledge that they were albumen prints). Are any details known?

[joeyrsmith]

Check out the online video about him at
http://www.opb.org/programs/oregonexperience/programs/player/16-The-River-They-Saw

Details his mammoth pix techinques and a lot of photos from the Columbia River in OR.

[dasBlute]

The full size contact prints from glass plate negatives that I've seen
at the Stanford Cantor Museum were exceptional, not faded at all,
and frankly, humbling in their quality.

[csant]

Thanks everybody for replies. I have seen the video - very interesting indeed. I was more interested in his technique of *printing*, rather than the wet plate negatives. But I seem to understand that some of the publications about him is the stuff I should consult. Thanks again - and merry Christmas.

claudio

[Drew Wiley]

You need to remember that most of Watkin's life work was destroyed by the 1906
SF earthquake and fire. I shattered him so badly emotionally that he spent the rest of
his life in a mental hospital. What you generally encounter in public exhibitions are
odds and ends pieced together from private collections, which often have a lot of
foxing or mildew damage. He also made little stereoscopic prints, which were mass
produced and are a lot more common. He was a master printmaker and refused to
relax his prices as competition arose with Western scenes. This cost him most of his commercial success. But in terms of vision and artistic perception, he was unrivalled in his time.

[csant]

But in terms of vision and artistic perception, he was unrivalled in his time.

Yes. I discovered him just recently, and immediately was drawn to the beauty and power of his work, which I find strong even today, still. It's clear that very little can be known about his negatives, since virtually all got destroyed - so I was interested in getting to know more about the details of his printing work. I guess that's due to the impossibility of easily seeing some of his prints, here in Europe… But I'll patch bits of pieces of info together. BTW - any monograph anybody could recommend? Not only is it important to me to find lots of technical details (that'd satisfy my theoretical curiosity), but also the quality of the prints is equally important (to satisfy my visual "hunger")…

[BrianShaw]

*printing*

Contact printing on albumen paper. Most often with sun as the light source.

[BrianShaw]

Here's something I remembered seeing, but took a while to find again. It talks about contact printing, including printing on albumen paper like Watkins did. It doesn't mention Watkins but the process was the same whether it was him or anyone else.

http://www.albumenworks.com/docs/CAW_POP_Historical_Notes.pdf

[BrianShaw]

There is also an excellent book by James Reilly called "The Albumen and Salted Paper Book" that discusses historical etails of albumen paper manufacture and printing.

[paulr]

I've seen some of his prints at the colorado historical society (the curator there was a teacher of mine). really stunning to see those big prints up close on a table.

[BrianShaw]

Dang... and I paid for the book. Now available for free. I want a refund!

http://albumen.conservation-us.org/library/monographs/reilly/

[Mark Sampson]

I stumbled upon a show of his work at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, back in 2000. I was amazed at the size and quality of the prints- they had a much greater impact than their size would suggest. An 18x22 contact print made by the right photographer is a powerful thing.

[Greg Blank]

That makes alot of sense. & I agree his subjects and compositions are great!



You need to remember that most of Watkin's life work was destroyed by the 1906
SF earthquake and fire. I shattered him so badly emotionally that he spent the rest of
his life in a mental hospital. What you generally encounter in public exhibitions are
odds and ends pieced together from private collections, which often have a lot of
foxing or mildew damage. He also made little stereoscopic prints, which were mass
produced and are a lot more common. He was a master printmaker and refused to
relax his prices as competition arose with Western scenes. This cost him most of his commercial success. But in terms of vision and artistic perception, he was unrivalled in his time.

[Greg Blank]

Where did you buy the book?

[QUOTE=BrianShaw;539216]Dang... and I paid for the book. Now available for free. I want a refund!

[BrianShaw]

Light Impressions... about 1980 or so.

[csant]

Thank you very much for all replies - some very interesting links got posted. Been reading a lot these last couple of days…

[csant]

…and been experimenting extensively with albumen prints (but I will have my scanner only in about 2 weeks, so results not until then).

One more question: does anybody have by any chance any data on what kind of paper Watkins printed on? i.e. weight, thickness, etc ?

[Kuzano]

You may want to take a look at the OPB video "The River They Saw". It's a well done piece about photography on the Columbia River in the late 1800's early 1900's. There was information about Carleton Watkins, showing pics of his camping and setting up his tent for preparing plates for his photography.

Here is a link to the OPB page listing the video and you can watch it on-line.

http://www.opb.org/programs/oregonexperience

[csant]

Thanks, I know the video (it has been mentioned a few times already) - but it doesn't really answer my questions, does it? :)

[Greg Blank]

To my knowledge, all albumen prints of the original process time frame were contact prints, most being made outdoors in contact print frames or indoors using diffused light. At Watkins time enlargers or even incandescent lamps were etremely rare and out in the field of the Western US "unheard of or unthinkable".



Thanks everybody for replies. I have seen the video - very interesting indeed. I was more interested in his technique of *printing*, rather than the wet plate negatives. But I seem to understand that some of the publications about him is the stuff I should consult. Thanks again - and merry Christmas.

claudio

[Greg Blank]

I'll give you a hint....although the information was hard won on my part, in the 1800's a guy by the name of John Towler wrote a book by the name of "The Silver Sunbeam" You can probly get a good copy for a few hundred dollars.

It outlines quite a few of the earlier processes. I might add that Albumen is a beautiful printing technique and yet it has an inherent flaw....that is the emulsion cracks over time...and that's how collectors can determine a print is albumen....via the typical egg shell cracking appearence under a loupe.

And many times the image typically has a brown red image tone with an off white paper tone. (At least the ones that I have and have viewed.)



QUOTE=csant;546377]Thanks, I know the video (it has been mentioned a few times already) - but it doesn't really answer my questions, does it? :)[/QUOTE]

[csant]

I'll give you a hint....although the information was hard won on my part, in the 1800's a guy by the name of John Towler wrote a book by the name of "The Silver Sunbeam" You can probly get a good copy for a few hundred dollars.

Greg, thanks a lot - and it's available at much cheaper than that ;)
http://albumen.conservation-us.org/library/monographs/sunbeam/
I'll give it a go.

I have also read The Albumen & Salted Paper Book which gives a lot of really good info (fabulous book! it also has some Suggestions for Further Reading in its Appendix A)
http://albumen.conservation-us.org/library/monographs/reilly/
but so far have not ventured into reading the original sources - will slowly get to it. In the meantime I am spending time actually *making* those albumen prints, and I have to concur - it is a really beautiful process.