van dyke brown process

Introduction:

The Van Dyke photographic process is named for the color of the print as it so matches a brown oil paint that was named for a Flemish oil painter.  An image is created on a photosensitive paper through the similar methods named before, a negative over sensitive paper in a printing frame. 

The iron-silver process was invented by Sir John Herschel and dubbed the Argentotype in 1842.  From then on there are many derivatives of his invention like the Van dyek, Kallitype, sepiaprint and Brownprint.  The Van Dyke process was developed off of John Herschel’s Kallitype in 1899 by W J Nichol.

Further information and references: 

       Lloyd Goodman - Alternative Photographic Process
       Mike Ware - The Argyrotype Process
       Alternative Photography - Vandyke Notes

Some 19^th century reading for interesting reference:
       The British Journal of Photography By Henry Greenwood

       The photographic news, Volumes 1-2 edited by Sir William Crookes, George Wharton Simpson

For a very nice video:

[begins with its own process for making a digital negative]  This is a different process, where solution is applied to a paper with printed toning and then exposed under a negative.  This would be interesting to try.   Though it might seem a bit difficult to ensure that the negative aligns with the image. 

Process and my experiences:

The process to make a Van Dyke print is to coat a page with a photosensitive solution, in this case an iron and silver mixture. 

To make a Van Dyke solution you make three solutions and combine them together. 

Part A:

-                33 mL Distilled water

-                9 grams ammonium ferric citrate green

-               18 grams ammonium ferric citrate brown

Part B:

-                33 mL Distilled water

-                1.5 grams Tartaric Acid

Part C:

-                 33 mL Distilled water

-                 3.8 grams silver nitrate.

Add part B to part A and then add part C while slowly stirring.  Store solution in a dark area within a tightly lidded glass bottle and age for a week.  Solution keeps stable activity for years after ripening period.

To coat the page, you just brush the solution on to the page though paper or organic fabric can be dipped into the solution (I would imagine this to be a messier process).  Hang the page to dry or, in our situation, we tape our pages down and then use a hair dryer on low to air dry them.  By taping them down there is less curling of the wet page.  Only one coat of this solution is necessary though it is probably better to do it thicker than thinner.

When applying the solution you have to be careful of the solution ‘setting up’ on the page.  It is important to work fast and light, quickly brushing on the solution and not rubbing it into the page.  The surface will be glossy as it is wet but will become more matte as it sets up.  You must not run over it with the brush after that point.  You must also be careful of streaking the surface or the image will not come out as well as it can.  So when applying, try to get a decent amount of solution on the brush and move over the page coating it as smoothly as possible as fast as possible. 

Once the page is dry, put it in a printing frame with a digital negative.  We used the digital negatives that we already created in the albumen and cyanotype experiments.  It was suggest to use the albumen ones as they would have the better contrasts.  I decided to do two tests one with each and see if I could see a difference.  There didn’t seems to be much of a difference, but the day was cloudy, as usual and that may have contributed to it. 

The exposure time is 20 to more minutes under artificial UV florescent lights; 10 to 15 minutes in direct sunlight, and approximately 30 minutes with photo floodlights.  Cloth needs approximately 50% more exposure time.  On a cloudy day, we stayed outside for about 15 minutes, I believe.  We were looking for a nice darker color and it turned out to be relatively orange.

After exposing, we washed the image and put it through a bath as follows:

The fixing process for Van Dyke has five baths and goes fairly quick, which is nice.  The first bath is water with a little citric acid.  A pinch of citric acid is all that it needs as the bath should be a neutral to mildly acidic pH.  The image should remain in the bath for about five minutes.

The next bath is one of fresh running water for a minute or two. 

From the running water, move the image to into the first of two hypo baths.  Each bath is made with 3% hypo and the image should soak in it for one minute each. 

Then finally, the image should be rinsed for forty minutes in running water. 

When fixing, the first bath will fade the image and it may be a bit startling, particularly if the last experiment done was a cyanotype where you may have experienced a vanishing image from poor exposure.  However, you will see a darkening of the image when put in the hypo solution.  The resulting image is nice and dark. 

As the image dries the print will darken. 

References: Formula and process.  A very thorough article on the Van Dyke process and the toning that can be performed with it: Van Dyke: an alternative printing process by Pete Caluori.

I liked this process a lot.  The resulting color and clarity of the image was something that I desired.  It was easy to apply, though we did not have to make the solution as it was made previously which might take away some of the fun of the process.  However, the image was only outside for 12 minutes and had a decent print.  The fixing process was also nice to see as the image faded in it’s orangy color and then darkened into a nice tone, almost as if it was kidding around by pretending to be fleeting only to come back stronger than the original look.  I would very much like to attempt this on fabric and see what comes out as well as the video’s suggestion, a printed out tonal picture and then the image printed on top.  The resulting image was quite beautiful.