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David Aimone
20-Jan-2016, 07:23
Curious where lead and mercury might be found in the darkrooms of traditional, alternative and historic processes. I know there are lots of harmful chemicals and metals, but wondering if these two are commonly found...

Thanks!

cjdewey
20-Jan-2016, 07:49
Found some mercury thermometers in my local darkroom just last week.

Wayne
20-Jan-2016, 07:50
I know my dad had a vial of mercury in his darkroom, but I have no recollection of what he used it for anymore. Its possible he just stored it there and didn't use it for photography.

Winger
20-Jan-2016, 07:53
If someone painted their darkroom before 1978 there could be lead paint.

I really don't know of these two being used in photography recently, much less being common. Is this just idle curiosity or is there a real question about it?

Bruce Barlow
20-Jan-2016, 07:56
Daguerrotypes use mercury

Struan Gray
20-Jan-2016, 08:07
Lead: some old darkrooms - and chemistry labs - have lead sinks. There are also lead toners and some lead compounds were used with other metal toners. Some early colour processes used lead chromate to form the yellow image.


Mercury: used in Daguerreotypes. Mercury (II) chloride was used to intensify negatives. With wet plate emulsions it can give a positive look. It was also used in various toners and colour-forming processes.



https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=NMJxyAwGvKcC
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=xUCNBgAAQBAJ

jp
20-Jan-2016, 08:11
http://www.conservation-wiki.com/wiki/Platinum,_Palladium
Mentions lead, mercury, uranium toning!

google search for "lead toning" mentions formulas for lead toning from the turn of the 20th century

http://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/pdf_publications/pdf/atlas_platinotype.pdf
Mentions lead, mercury, uranium and cesium!

Of course, hand coloring could have any variety of chemicals in the paints.

David Aimone
20-Jan-2016, 08:12
Nope, new house no lead paint; no mercury thermometers; ABS Delta plastic darkroom sink; don't do Daguerreotypes; no old thermometers;

So far so good, in the darkroom anyway!

Struan Gray
20-Jan-2016, 08:16
If you're worried about finding them in a modern darkroom, the most likely source would be mercury salts from a broken compact fluorescent bulb.

David Aimone
20-Jan-2016, 08:17
Use palladium and gold toners from Christopher James' book, using Bostick and Sullivan solutions of gold and palladium chloride with citric acid and distilled water only.


http://www.conservation-wiki.com/wiki/Platinum,_Palladium
Mentions lead, mercury, uranium toning!

google search for "lead toning" mentions formulas for lead toning from the turn of the 20th century

http://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/pdf_publications/pdf/atlas_platinotype.pdf
Mentions lead, mercury, uranium and cesium!

Of course, hand coloring could have any variety of chemicals in the paints.

David Aimone
20-Jan-2016, 08:17
All new LED bulbs that don't give off UV light!


If you're worried about finding them in a modern darkroom, the most likely source would be mercury salts from a broken compact fluorescent bulb.

Cor
20-Jan-2016, 08:23
Mercury:

For severely underexposed negatives: VMI Intensifier; works miracles, but nevertheless stay away from it because of high toxicity.

Lead

Toner for cyanotypes

Best,

Cor

David Aimone
20-Jan-2016, 08:31
Well, thanks everyone here for helping to rule out the darkroom as my major source of exposure. What a relief! I'll be doing some natural detoxifying with a doctor's guidance and ruling out any other possible current sources, if any. Could be older exposure. We did live in an old farmhouse but moved here 7 years ago...

Bob Salomon
20-Jan-2016, 08:31
In my old 6th grade Gilbert Chemistry Set I had both, and then lots of other stuff, all kept in my under stairs darkroom.

David Aimone
20-Jan-2016, 08:34
Well honestly, I don't know how long the stuff stays in your body, but I remember a friend of mine when I was about 10 or 12 had a bunsen burner, a crucible, and molds, and we used to make our own fishing sinkers from lead as well as fill molds of (ironically) skull and crossbones. Go figure! That was roughly 1970...

Jason Greenberg Motamedi
20-Jan-2016, 08:51
As other point out, if you used mercury or lead in the darkroom you would know it, and if you were careful you wouldn't have any in your body. I work with mercury in a fumehood and get tested annually. I have never had more than the typical level of mercury in my blood. I suspect the cause is environmental, so think about your (and your city's) water pipes, eating big fish like tuna or swordfish, living near coal burning plants and mines, as well as dozens of natural sources...

David Aimone
20-Jan-2016, 08:57
It's a mystery so far... but we're investigating as well as detoxifying...

Again, just glad to confirm it's not my art that's doing it...

Struan Gray
20-Jan-2016, 09:02
Sorry you're suffering. I was assuming you were worried about poisoning iron-based processes.

People who eat a lot of sushi can get elevated mercury levels, and lead paint and water pipes are still around in older habitation.

My school really did find mercury under the floorboards from historic spills - enough to put the mercury vapour level above modern safety recommendations - so if there's any chance a thermometer got broken somewhere near a favourite armchair it's worth checking.

Another source would be contaminated groundwater or soil. Drinking well water or growing your own food can expose you to nasties in the soil - this has happened several times around here when housing was built on former light industrial sites, but usually the contaminants are organic solvents not heavy metals.

David Aimone
20-Jan-2016, 09:09
Thanks, will look into all of the above. Our house is less than 15 years old, but we've been living here about half the time. We're in town, and there is an old railroad bed behind our house that is now a bike path. I don't spend a lot of time in the garden though.... :/


Sorry you're suffering. I was assuming you were worried about poisoning iron-based processes.

People who eat a lot of sushi can get elevated mercury levels, and lead paint and water pipes are still around in older habitation.

My school really did find mercury under the floorboards from historic spills - enough to put the mercury vapour level above modern safety recommendations - so if there's any chance a thermometer got broken somewhere near a favourite armchair it's worth checking.

Another source would be contaminated groundwater or soil. Drinking well water or growing your own food can expose you to nasties in the soil - this has happened several times around here when housing was built on former light industrial sites, but usually the contaminants are organic solvents not heavy metals.

LabRat
20-Jan-2016, 09:33
The good news about lead and mercury is A/generally not used anymore, B/the metals/compounds are heavy and tend to not go too far (and simply fall), C/tends to not go airborne unless well heated (then falls), D/the material itself is not so toxic as the oxidation on it, E/if you keep it off you and not in you (or others) you are fine, F/you would have had a major debilitating illness by now had you been well exposed...

Nowadays, the bigger problem is other things in our environments, that are substances that were "harmless" in the past, but now issues, such as interior preservatives, outgassing plastics, byproducts of man-made items/processes, things we cook with, stuff we eat was packaged in ???, what was our food/water exposed/processed to/with, pesticides, naturally occuring processes (molds, bacteria, vermin, etc), what we breath, eat, wear, and the strange number of allergies people now have etc...

When I got into lab work, I did research as what I would commonly be exposed to, as I was concerned as my grandfather worked in many factories over time, and passed from work related lung cancer... I had found that most of the common B/W chems were weaker than the related products under your kitchen sink, and with good housekeeping, practice, and good ventilation shouldn't be a problem... (But as soon as some people hear the term "chemicals" these days, they flash to waking dreams of industrial New Jersey/1950, Walter White, or something I can't imagine...)

But good to do an inventory of ALL the things around you in your environment, that may affect someone... And don't let this stuff make you crazy too... (Thinking Hurts!!!!) It always likely to be going around in this modern life...

Happy Hunting!!!

Steve K

Drew Wiley
20-Jan-2016, 09:46
These wretched pseudo-energy-efficient CFL light bulbs being sold in the jillions right now contain mercury. But they're a bad idea in a darkroom anyway due to
afterglow and horrible color viewing characteristics, which obviously effect how you evaluate the effect of toning black and white prints, and not just color printing per se. And most of them don't last anywhere near as long as they claim, so are a bad value to begin with. They are also unreliable in damp situations like a sink room. Hopefully improved LED lighting will drive them extinct in the near future. Vinyl compounds have already been mentioned. They can smudge up an exposed lens on an enlarger just like vinyl dashboards do to windshields. I recently acquired a pair of import gloves where the alleged "rubber" actually rubbed off on prints. I like something that slips on and off in the darkroom, with a big cuff, when handling prints in trays. In film processing I use disposable thin nitrile gloves instead. But deliberate false labeling and an obscene abuse of plasticizers on vinyl products is a plague at the moment. People are getting skin
rashes all over the place and can't figure it out, from these idiotic excercise wrist monitors to camping tents. Duuuh. "Made in China" pretty much explains it.

ic-racer
20-Jan-2016, 11:24
Mercury thermometers and lead solder joints in my darkroom. I try not to eat or drink either of them.

Drew Wiley
20-Jan-2016, 12:10
Just move to Flint, Michigan.

Jim Jones
20-Jan-2016, 12:11
There is a tendency for people to hear that certain elements and compounds are dangerous (true, in large enough quantities), and go overboard in protesting their use. With care, they are safe. Even when used casually, they rarely harm. Long ago I made a mercury switch by squeezing the mercury out of a dead mercury battery and sealing it into a small neon bulb. Mercury was a fascinating element to play with 70 years ago, and I'm still healthy. Casting lead bullets and eating meat that had been brought down by lead shot or bullets hasn't done any damage, either. We can't live without oxygen, and too much of it is dangerous or fatal.

I despise CFLs. They can last long and use less electricity in some applications. They don't fit some fixtures. One did illuminate the length of my house 24 hours a day for three years before failing, but incandescent lamps at low (and inefficient) voltages last as long. Some CFLs emit obnoxious light and aren't reliable in cold environments. Neon bulbs were good for some things. So were electroluminescent panels. That may be another technology that should be perfected.

Andrew O'Neill
20-Jan-2016, 13:11
My pencil....;)

Drew Wiley
20-Jan-2016, 13:29
Eating lead bullet meat came very very close to exterminating California condors forever, and isn't very good for fillings in human teeth either, as every quail
or duck hunter knows (Crruunch!). Also very bad for bottom-diving ducks who accidentally scoop shot off the bottom. I see cases of lead paint poisoning all the
time. But there are morons even in Congress that claim its harmless unless you're pregnant or an infant. Mercury poisoning of house painters was limited to a
brief era when mercury driers were incorporated in early latex wall primers; but some of those cases are horrific in terms of psychological damage. Here we have old mercury ore(cinnabar) mines at the south end of the Bay, which were active during the gold rush. Some of it gets transitioned into the absorbable form in the marshes and poisons the food chain. But most of the reason you don't want to east too many fish from the SF Bay is that all that "quicksilver" has actually worked its way clear downriver from the Gold Rush era up in the Mother Lode, and finally ended up in the Bay. There is a worker here whose wife made him tunafish sandwiches every day for years, then he ended up with behavioral problems and had to be detoxified. My own primary care physician years ago was so paranoid about the alleged ills of high cholesterol foods that he almost lived on water-packed tuna. He literally got hauled off to the asylum. All things in moderation. And some things in the darkroom be damn careful with, like chromium salts, hydroxide, potassium permangenate, glacial acetic acid.

Peter De Smidt
20-Jan-2016, 14:24
Victor Mercury Intensifier.

LabRat
20-Jan-2016, 18:36
But if you are concerned if there's something in your environment, for piece of mind, have testing done for the suspected contaminants so you can rule out different sources and sleep easier...

Good luck!!!

Steve K

Pierre 2
20-Jan-2016, 19:21
And of course, if your house has iron drain pipes, the toilet adjacent to the darkroom could have a very big lead insert in the drain, from just under the bee's wax ring. Those lead insert are probably the easiest way to gain access to a big chunk of lead cheap : Available at any hardware store.

And I understand old fluorescent tubes may have up to a tablespoon of liquid mercury inside (although I suspect a teaspoon maybe more typical...).

In a different perspective, if your are using any electronic device, there is a good chance that some of the gold that it contains was obtained through the use of less than optimal mercury process (they were talking about this on public radio today, in a discussion of modern slavery).

JMO
20-Jan-2016, 19:30
Regarding what is "toxic" and under what circumstances and doses, one should consider that even water is "toxic" depending on the dose and exposure. Wikipedia has a page on "water intoxication (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication)" you may find interesting, and such "intoxication," which can even lead to death (we're not talking about drowning), is unfortunately not uncommon in today's world. Excessive water intake can be "toxic" when it leads to hypornatremia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyponatremia) or low sodium levels in the blood serum which cause serious problems to functioning of your nervous system. Exposure to lead, mercury and certain other "toxic" heavy metals is generally a long-term or "chronic" risk situation. As others have pointed out in this thread, if you take basic care to not eat, drink or inhale fumes containing such heavy metals as lead and mercury, then you will have little risk from those "toxic" elements because you have sufficiently limited your personal exposure and dose. Therefore, it is important to know the likely potential sources of those substances (some recounted in this thread), so you can take special care around those sources. It is comforting to know that your skin and your digestive system are fairly good (though not perfect) barriers to entry of many substances into your body and its blood serum. ...

Struan Gray
21-Jan-2016, 01:37
If I read David right, he has already been diagnosed with possible heavy metal poisoning, and is looking for causes. Issues about overprotective legislation aren't really relevant in this case.

I have been trained in decontamination drills for labs and other workspaces, and sources and transport routes of heavy metals are not always obvious to the layman, and often defy common sense. The biggest source of environmental mercury in most Swedish towns comes from dental amalgam vapourised in crematoria. That's not a simple problem to solve, or to track down.

Good luck David, and I hope you get detoxified soon. One final point that occurs: if your symptoms are of general heavy metal poisoning (and not specifically lead and mercury) then it is just possible that your gold or platinum/palladium salts are to blame. It is almost impossible to get poisoning from these elements in metal form, but as compounds there are ways for them to interact with your body chemistry. Talk to your real doctor though, not me.

neil poulsen
21-Jan-2016, 02:52
I believe it's Mercuric Chloride (?) that was used as a negative toner long ago. Very serious stuff; so toxic, that spills are worthy of a haz-mat team. I read one time that Stieglitz had been using it a few days before his death. (Not that there was necessarily a connection.)

I saw some for sale in the EBay Darkroom section a while ago, and the seller had no warnings of its extreme toxicity. I contacted him, and he reluctantly ended the auction.

Drew Wiley
22-Jan-2016, 09:51
This is, in several aspects at least, the front line for me. I have been directly involved in EPA training and licensing of at least two thousand contractors, and have
supplied lead prevention equipment to many, many more. Therefore I have seen with my own eyes many many cases of cumulative lead and mercury poisoning over the years, and it ain't a purty sight! Also many wannabee artistes who got poisoned by all kinds of things, assuming immortal fame was worth risking their
health. Lucky if they got a designer coffin. Most of this is common sense. The current EPA laws concerning lead paint simply gives them the opportunity for legal
enforcement of what have been recommended guidelines for the past several decades. The good news is that now very efficient equipment is readily available
to control much of this and even make work far more efficient and profitable at the same time, if some idiot congressman or bonehead phony contractor doesn't go around claiming poisoning and cancer are actually good for you. Getting chelated for lead is VERY expensive and un-fun, and can't reverse severe cases.
What is happening to people in Flint Mich right now due to contamination in their water supply is unthinkably irresponsible. Sounds like Medieval times. If the
water looks and smells like puke, don't drink it! But undetected trace amounts of pesticides, and how they interact in many unknown ways, is a more subtle
danger. In darkroom practice, the plug is already being pulled on chromium salts in the EU, and it is inevitable that the EPA will follow suit here in the US.

neil poulsen
22-Jan-2016, 10:59
. . . In darkroom practice, the plug is already being pulled on chromium salts in the EU, and it is inevitable that the EPA will follow suit here in the US.

Interesting. I can't believe how casual some of the alternative photographers are about dumping hexa-valent chromium down the drain.

cuypers1807
22-Jan-2016, 11:09
I would have your water supply tested. Also could be in the soil around the house. Also old style dental work can have Mercury (Amalgum).

Drew Wiley
22-Jan-2016, 12:36
There are unbelievable quantities of toxic waste in many of not only our cities which once had a serious hard industrial presence, but sometimes even worse in
rural agricultural areas where pesticides etc have been abused for decades. Right where I'm sitting at this very moment, it takes a special permit even to drill a
test hole in the ground. That's because this area was once ringed by big paint factories as well as various Naval installations. All kinds of lead, chromium, mercury, cadmium, PCB's, and even some radioactive things are in the soil, but efficiently capped off by cement slabs and layers of modern asphalt. The key is to disturb nothing - just leave it there and don't get it in the air at all. Otherwise, literally billions of dollars of hazmat work come into play, and that has to transpire well away from residential or routine work activity. The mere building permit application fee to convert the Colgate plant down the street into a modern Bayer plant was 600K, with hundreds of millions involved in the actual renovation - without even disturbing the soil! But tech industries are contributing
their own kinds of nasties into drain water. I sure as heck wouldn't windsurf out in the Bay where the drains empty, but lot of people do.

neil poulsen
23-Jan-2016, 11:13
I got excited about, and took a workshop on gum over ptpd, where one can add pigment to a ptpd print. It produces an absolutely beautiful print. But learning more about the process, the chromium part of it put me off.

I heard about and investigated a way where one can convert the hexa-valent chromium by product to tri-valent chromium, and then precipitate it out as a metal. Then using filtration, it can be discarded as a solid in the trash. With an ongoing setup, I think that it could be done in a fairly efficient manner. But, I ended up backing away from the whole project.

If I want to do alternative photography, it might as well be silver-gelatin.