RE: Stability of Carbon Prints

He he ha ha ooowee oowee ohmygawd.... Sandy got tooken. Thought some digers
were carbons!

I all fairness I've been taken as well having to ask if some inkers were
pt's or carbons at times myself. I think what we were discussing over on
Judy's Forum is operable, that is: it is the fact that they are handmade
that is the important issue. Also they are of a historical nature, made like
they were in the old days. Rolls Royce used to advertise that the radiators
were soldered by hand with an soldering iron heated in a metal pot of
charcoal. This was up in the 80's no less. There is no reason to think this
is any better than a machine welded seam but the aura was the car was
largely handmade -- and probably still is.

Atraraxia also got off the beam by stressing the permanence of carbon -- so
true -- but weren't they setting themselves up for a fall when digital
becomes permanent. Like it's going to happen, right? Or already has.

--Dick

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-carbon@spitbite.org [mailto:owner-carbon@spitbite.org] On Behalf
Of Sandy King
Sent: Monday, May 28, 2007 3:18 PM
To: carbon@spitbite.org
Subject: [carbon] Stability of Carbon Prints

I have a story that some of you may find interesting, even though it
makes me look rather slow.

The story has its genesis in a workshop/exhibition I did last October
at the IFSAK Bienal of Photography. For the exhibition I sent over
some 20-25 prints, mostly carbons but a few carbons. Before returning
home I traded prints with a couple of photographers, including Loris
Medici who posts her from time to time, and a fellow named Bulent,
who does beautiful silver B&W work.

OK, the prints were shipped back to me and arrived in time for me to
use some of them in an exhibition in Toronto in December. When I
started going through the mounted prints I noticed that a few of them
had a very strange and unusual yellow-orange cast in the highlights,
where there should have been a neutral tone. This really concerned
me, because as we all know, carbon prints are absolutely stable. So I
begin to conjecture on what kind of noxious toxins must be in the
atmosphere of Istanbul to cause this kind of degradation.

Today I was putting together a collection of prints for a local
exhibition and pulled out some of the prints that had been in
Istanbul, and again noticed the yellow-orange cast, which was much
worse than in December. Now I am really pulling my hair out on this
because I put a lot of emphasis in my work on archival processing,
and hell, with carbon that should be a snap anyway.

Then I took a closer look, and what I found was that the prints I
thought were carbons were actually mock-up prints, color inkjets no
doubt, that were placed in the original mattes when the prints I
traded were removed. Why this was done I have no clue but the fact
that I did not know about it sure caused a fair amount of
consternation at this end.

Sandy King
_______________________________________________
Post to the list as PLAIN TEXT only - no HTML
carbon mailing list
carbon@spitbite.org
FAQ at http://spitbite.org/carbon/list.html
_______________________________________________
Post to the list as PLAIN TEXT only - no HTML
carbon mailing list
carbon@spitbite.org
FAQ at http://spitbite.org/carbon/list.html
Received on Mon May 28 16:16:09 2007