Albumen and Salt Printing

Last week I participated in an Albumen and Salt Printing Workshop at the George Eastman House Museum in Rochester NY taught by Mark Osterman and ably assisted by Nick Brandreth.  We learned how to make high quality handmade prints using glass plate negatives and plain paper sensitized with a silver nitrate solution.  These historic processes date back to the very early days of photography in the mid 19th century.

For albumen printing we cracked 5 dozen eggs to separate out the whites, mixed in ammonium chloride and beat until stiff – just like making a meringue except for a slightly different recipe.  After the egg whites settled back to liquid form we coated paper and after it dried we sensitized with silver nitrate.  Then we exposed the paper using glass plate negatives, and then processed with gold chloride and fixed the prints before washing and drying.

coating with albumen
Eric Baillies coating paper with albumen
Mark Osterman loads a printing frame
Mark Osterman loads a printing frame
checking exposure
checking exposure

processing albumen print

washing albumen print
washing albumen print
albumen print
dried albumen print

We also learned how to make salted paper prints, a similar process but without the egg whites.

salted paper print
salted paper print from a digital neg made from a glass plate

Finally we waxed the salt prints with bees wax and oil of lavender.

waxing salt prints
Waxing the salt prints with Eric Baillies, Mark Osterman and Maria Santo

The other students were Eric Baillies and Maria Santo.  We also spent time looking at the extraordinary examples of albumen and salt prints in the Eastman House archives.  Including seeing some Hill & Adamson daguerreotypes in the conservation lab.

Hill & Adamson daguerreotype
Hill & Adamson daguerreotype

It was a great week learning and refining my skills, studying the history of photography and making friends.