Albumen Prints
I’ve been interested in albumen printing for some time and thought I’d visit with my friend, Peñasco printmaker and photographer, Franco Ortiz who has been interested in photographic and graphic arts history, and older, lesser-known processes for as long as he can remember.
One of his favorite alternative processes is making albumen prints. He often uses images from other photographers, mine include, but this was the first time I was involved in the printing of my images first hand, and it was fun.
“One of the reasons I really enjoy albumen prints is the process seems to take me back in time to the beginnings of photography,” Franco said. “It’s like I become a part of history when I make these prints.
“That’s not to say I abhor modern photographic technology,” Franco continued. “I have a number of digital cameras that I use often. I appreciate the advances in technology but often it seems that the equipment makes it too easy, and I want more of a challenge on the road to a final photographic print.
“And I’m amazed at how many photo- graphs are being produced these days,” Franco said with a tinge of awe in his voice. “With cell phones, 24/7 news cycles, cameras, people taking selfies — we are documenting our society in a way never before done.
“I used to appreciate self-portraits, but the selfie trend has, for me at least, made banal the norm,” Franco continued. “Celebrities with pouty lips shared over and over — trivial to say the least. But as I said, we are documenting society the way it is now, the zeitgeist, warts, or banal selfies and all.
“But when I want to slow down and take a more labor intensive approach to a photograph, I’ll turn to one of my older film cameras, usually one that uses four by five inch size film or larger — I have an eight by 10 inch film camera that I’ll lug around sometimes — and albumen as my printing process.”
An albumen print primer
The albumen print, also called albumen silver print, was first published in January 1847 by Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard, and was the first commercially exploitable method of producing a photographic print on a paper base from a negative. It used the albumen found in egg whites to bind the photographic chemicals to the paper and became the dominant form of photographic positives from 1855 to the start of the 20th century, with a peak in the 1860 to 1890 period.
During the mid-19th Century, the carte de visite became one of the more popular uses of the albumen method.
The carte de visite (French for “visiting card”), was a type of small photograph something akin to a current day business card. Each photograph was the size of a visiting card, and such photo- graph cards were commonly traded among friends and visitors in the 1860s. Albums for the collection and display of cards became a common fixture in Victorian parlors. The immense popularity of these card photographs led to the publication and collection of photographs of prominent persons.
One of Ortiz’s favorite photographic genres is the work of the Pictorialists.
Pictorialism 101
In the history of photography, the term “Pictorialism” refers to an international style and aesthetic movement that flourished in particular between 1885 and 1915.
Involving some of the greatest photographers of the time, Pictorialism was a style of fine art photography in which the camera artist manipulates a regular photo in order to create an “artistic” image.
The Pictorialist movement emerged in response to the growth of amateur photography caused by the invention of easy-to-use camera equipment, such as the handheld amateur camera introduced by Kodak in 1888.
At the time, dedicated photographers believed that the amateur “point-and-shoot” approach undermined the artistic nature of photography and the role of the photographer as craftsman. As a result, in order to safeguard their “art,” they adopted a more “professional” approach to photography (with or without manipulation in the darkroom), which involved the use of more complex cameras, as well as labor-intensive processes including gum bichromate printing, homemade emulsions and platinum prints. All of this allowed Pictorialists to create a style of artistic photography in the form of a wide range of unusual, tonally subtle images.
Another important factor that led to the rise of Pictorialism was the increasingly close relationship between photography and fine art painting.
An increasing number of modern artists including Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas and Paul Gauguin began to use photographs when completing landscapes or portraits in the studio.
At the same time, numerous Pictorialist cameramen — like Alvin Langdon Coburn, Edward Steichen, Oscar Gustave Rejlander, Gertrude Kasebier and Sarah Choate Sears — trained as painters or took up painting while involved in photography.
Pictorialism faded in popularity after 1920, although it did not disappear until the Second World War. During this period of decline it was superseded by more sharply focused imagery.
Some of the better-known proponents of Pictorialism in the United States included: Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Charles Sheeler, Edward Weston, Man Ray and Paul Strand.
“Albumen prints have less contrast, or are ‘softer,’ than a typical silver gelatin photo,” Franco explained from the doorway to his Peñasco darkroom. “I use the process when I’m trying to evoke a period in photography from long ago — a nostalgic feel, if you will.
“Although a lot of the Pictorialists favored contrived, peopled images that were trying to replicate in some manner Renaissance paintings, I prefer to go to albumen with a lot of my landscape photos.
“They have a real turn-of-the-century feel to them and, I think at least for me, transport me back to the early days of photography, pre-digital, pre-iPhone and pre-Instagram,” Franco said. “And with landscapes, the lower contrast isn’t as objectionable as it might be in, say, a portrait or documentary image.”
Franco jokes about some of the materials he uses.
“You have a lot of photographers that extoll the virtues of giclée prints and archival quality,” Franco said with a chuckle. “Sometimes I think they place more emphasis on the length of time an image will last rather than stressing the quality of the image.
“I tell people who look at my images that they are ‘organic,’ and I’m not referring to the fact that they are often nature shots, but the fact that the eggs I use to obtain my albumen are from chickens I raise myself, chickens that are raised on organic feed and are also free range.”
Organic photos — who would have thought?
Preparation of albumen paper begins with fresh eggs — only the clear white is used.
“The paper stock I use is a lightweight rag stock of exceptional quality and purity,” Franco explained. “The rawstock needs to be thin enough to remain pliant when coated with a layer of dried albumen.
“Sensitization is accomplished by floating the albumen paper on a silver nitrate solution for two to three minutes,” he said. “Paper sensitized on a plain silver nitrate solution yellows (by the spontaneous reduction of metallic silver) within one or two days, so sensitization, printing and processing are usually done on the same day.”
Franco does have conflicting feelings about the longevity or permanence of albumen prints.
“Unfortunately, albumen prints as a group merit the urgent concern and attention of conservators,” Franco said, citing research from the Getty Museum in California. “Very few survive in original condition.
“Approximately 85 percent of extant albumen prints suffer from the presence of a yellowish-brown stain in the highlights (non image areas), and almost as many exhibit overall image fading, with an accompanying shift in image color from purple or purplish-brown to a sickly yellowish-brown. Deterioration often includes a partial or severe loss of highlight detail. The staining, fading and color change may range from slight to very severe, but the extent of deterioration In albumen prints as a whole Is much more advanced than in nearly every other variety of photographic paper, including types which pre-date albumen papers.
“Albumen prints are produced by a ‘printing-out’ process meaning no chemical developer is necessary,” Franco continued. “This has some important consequences for the appearance and permanence of the resultant prints. The fundamental silver image particles produced in all silver printing-out papers are very much smaller than the image particles produced by the action of a chemical developer. Because of the phenomenon known as light scattering, after fixation the smaller image particles of printing-out papers do not appear neutral black, but instead appear brown, red or even yellow.
Franco moved to the Peñasco area in the 1990s after serving in the military.
“I’ve always been fascinated with cameras and took a lot of photographs in the military,” Franco said. “But really got serious about my photos when I moved to New Mexico.”
Franco was stationed in the Middle East and in Central America, and for a few years after retiring, served as an advisor before totally severing ties with the military and taking up the life of a civilian full time in the late 1980s. Returning to civilian life gave him a chance to do something he’d always wanted to do.
“I had traveled a lot in the military, but never really got to see the country I was defending all those years,” Franco said. “So I bought an old school bus, fixed it up so I could live in it, and traveled around the United States for about a year. I went to every state except Hawaii, which I had been to in the military, and after being all over the country, decided that New Mexico felt the most comfortable to settle down in.”
He bought a parcel of land and lived in his bus until a small, energy efficient house was completed.
“I felt really comfortable living in my bus for a year, but by the time I finished my house, I was ready to be living in something that was firmly attached to the ground.”
And having amassed hundreds of rolls of film during that year on the road when a darkroom wasn’t available or easily accessible, an essential part of his new home was a darkroom.
“I had used a darkroom in the military, but to have one of my own was like having my own personal chapel or meditation space,” Franco said. “When I go in there and close the door, the outside world seems very far removed, which was especially nice during the last election and the pandemic.
“People believing in conspiracies involving the election and avoiding being vaccinated against COVID, simply put, it was depressing. I thought to myself, ‘Where has common sense gone?’
“So being able to go out and photograph nature, and then come back to my darkroom and work on images, it was therapeutic to say the least,” he said.
Technique
“I try to keep my compositions as simple and uncluttered as possible,” Franco explained. “Generally speaking I’m not trying to make any philosophical or environmental statements other than, at least for my nature images, that I love nature and try to pass that on to whomever I meet.
“I suppose one could assume that I’m trying to get people to pay more attention to global warming and its effects on nature and wildlife, but to be honest, I think either people are aware of the problems and they have a love and respect for nature, or they deny the existence of global warming and don’t think any further than their own welfare.
“That might have sounded a bit preachy, eh?” Franco asked. “It wasn’t meant to be, jut ranting a bit. I do that some times when I’ve not been out taking photos or working in the darkroom as much as I should.”
But it’s the darkroom where Franco really is in his element.
“When I take a photograph or series of photos, I have an idea of what I want the final print to look like, but until I’m in the darkroom working with a particular image, a final print seems rather hazy to me,” Franco explained. “When the image starts to appear on the paper, that’s when the subject really comes alive for me.
“In terms of my albumen prints, I have always appreciated the shaped borders you find on some of them, you know, the lower portion of the print is squared off and the upper portion is domed shaped,” France said with a smile. “That is so retro and period-like, but I don’t use that for all of my albumen prints, just selected images.”
One of my “selected” images, which Franco has printed before, is the one of trees and fallen trees taken in the bosque along the Rio Grande in Albuquerque. Although Franco said he’s trying to avoid “statement” in his photo- graphs, this image does come very close to passing on an environmental message to its viewers.
“The vertical format and the bob filled with fallen logs or branches in the fore- ground really called out to me for that rounded, arch-topped border for some reason,” Franco mused. “I think a part of me remembered historical photos I had seen of logging operations in the Pacific Northwest in the early days and coming across the scene in the bosque brought those memories to mind.
“Speaking of old photos,” Franco added. “The stereographs have always appealed to me, also. And although there are two images side by side in a stereo- graph, they also have rounded tops, similar to the round top border I sometimes use with my albumen prints, which might also help explain the border’s allure to me.
”
Franco’s mantra of “simple and uncluttered” is echoed in a number of his images. Take for example the group of burned trees along the High Road to Taos, which he photographed between Ojo Sarco and Peñasco. There is an almost perfect symmetry to the trees standing side by side, as if by attention.
You stare at the trees and the trees stare right back at you.
“It was as if the trees were posing just for me, a group portrait if you will,” Franco said. “As I passed by I noticed that all the trees were blackened by a relatively recent fire. What impressed me the most, however, was the fact that they all had fresh green growth and had resisted the ravages of the fire.
“To me it is a nice, simple testament to the resiliency of nature.”
Although Franco’s subject of choice is nature, he strays from time to time. One such example is the vertical image of a cross in the San Rafael Del Guique Cemetery.
The cemetery image is vertical and the main subject is a large cross in the foreground with a number of others nearby, but appearing much smaller.
It has a moody, brooding quality that seems perfect for the subject matter.
“Perhaps I’m morbid, or it might be the fact that I’ve lost a lot of comrades while serving in the military, but when- ever I pass a cemetery, I often stop to pay my respects,” Franco said. “In this instance, the cross against the brooding sky beckoned me.”
Final thoughts
“Like I said, working with the albumen process helps me connect in some way with the early photographers,” Franco said right before his visit with Rio Grande SUN Arts ended. “Knowing I’m working in an area that was popular during the 1800s is cool. It’s sort of like I’m doing genealogical research, but of a visual kind, where I am looking for things a long lost relative may have done during his or her lifetime and replicating those things — in this case the albumen printing process — which ties me in with those long lost ‘relatives’ I never knew.”
One of his favorite alternative processes is making albumen prints. He often uses images from other photographers, mine include, but this was the first time I was involved in the printing of my images first hand, and it was fun.
“One of the reasons I really enjoy albumen prints is the process seems to take me back in time to the beginnings of photography,” Franco said. “It’s like I become a part of history when I make these prints.
“That’s not to say I abhor modern photographic technology,” Franco continued. “I have a number of digital cameras that I use often. I appreciate the advances in technology but often it seems that the equipment makes it too easy, and I want more of a challenge on the road to a final photographic print.
“And I’m amazed at how many photo- graphs are being produced these days,” Franco said with a tinge of awe in his voice. “With cell phones, 24/7 news cycles, cameras, people taking selfies — we are documenting our society in a way never before done.
“I used to appreciate self-portraits, but the selfie trend has, for me at least, made banal the norm,” Franco continued. “Celebrities with pouty lips shared over and over — trivial to say the least. But as I said, we are documenting society the way it is now, the zeitgeist, warts, or banal selfies and all.
“But when I want to slow down and take a more labor intensive approach to a photograph, I’ll turn to one of my older film cameras, usually one that uses four by five inch size film or larger — I have an eight by 10 inch film camera that I’ll lug around sometimes — and albumen as my printing process.”
An albumen print primer
The albumen print, also called albumen silver print, was first published in January 1847 by Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard, and was the first commercially exploitable method of producing a photographic print on a paper base from a negative. It used the albumen found in egg whites to bind the photographic chemicals to the paper and became the dominant form of photographic positives from 1855 to the start of the 20th century, with a peak in the 1860 to 1890 period.
During the mid-19th Century, the carte de visite became one of the more popular uses of the albumen method.
The carte de visite (French for “visiting card”), was a type of small photograph something akin to a current day business card. Each photograph was the size of a visiting card, and such photo- graph cards were commonly traded among friends and visitors in the 1860s. Albums for the collection and display of cards became a common fixture in Victorian parlors. The immense popularity of these card photographs led to the publication and collection of photographs of prominent persons.
One of Ortiz’s favorite photographic genres is the work of the Pictorialists.
Pictorialism 101
In the history of photography, the term “Pictorialism” refers to an international style and aesthetic movement that flourished in particular between 1885 and 1915.
Involving some of the greatest photographers of the time, Pictorialism was a style of fine art photography in which the camera artist manipulates a regular photo in order to create an “artistic” image.
The Pictorialist movement emerged in response to the growth of amateur photography caused by the invention of easy-to-use camera equipment, such as the handheld amateur camera introduced by Kodak in 1888.
At the time, dedicated photographers believed that the amateur “point-and-shoot” approach undermined the artistic nature of photography and the role of the photographer as craftsman. As a result, in order to safeguard their “art,” they adopted a more “professional” approach to photography (with or without manipulation in the darkroom), which involved the use of more complex cameras, as well as labor-intensive processes including gum bichromate printing, homemade emulsions and platinum prints. All of this allowed Pictorialists to create a style of artistic photography in the form of a wide range of unusual, tonally subtle images.
Another important factor that led to the rise of Pictorialism was the increasingly close relationship between photography and fine art painting.
An increasing number of modern artists including Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas and Paul Gauguin began to use photographs when completing landscapes or portraits in the studio.
At the same time, numerous Pictorialist cameramen — like Alvin Langdon Coburn, Edward Steichen, Oscar Gustave Rejlander, Gertrude Kasebier and Sarah Choate Sears — trained as painters or took up painting while involved in photography.
Pictorialism faded in popularity after 1920, although it did not disappear until the Second World War. During this period of decline it was superseded by more sharply focused imagery.
Some of the better-known proponents of Pictorialism in the United States included: Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Charles Sheeler, Edward Weston, Man Ray and Paul Strand.
“Albumen prints have less contrast, or are ‘softer,’ than a typical silver gelatin photo,” Franco explained from the doorway to his Peñasco darkroom. “I use the process when I’m trying to evoke a period in photography from long ago — a nostalgic feel, if you will.
“Although a lot of the Pictorialists favored contrived, peopled images that were trying to replicate in some manner Renaissance paintings, I prefer to go to albumen with a lot of my landscape photos.
“They have a real turn-of-the-century feel to them and, I think at least for me, transport me back to the early days of photography, pre-digital, pre-iPhone and pre-Instagram,” Franco said. “And with landscapes, the lower contrast isn’t as objectionable as it might be in, say, a portrait or documentary image.”
Franco jokes about some of the materials he uses.
“You have a lot of photographers that extoll the virtues of giclée prints and archival quality,” Franco said with a chuckle. “Sometimes I think they place more emphasis on the length of time an image will last rather than stressing the quality of the image.
“I tell people who look at my images that they are ‘organic,’ and I’m not referring to the fact that they are often nature shots, but the fact that the eggs I use to obtain my albumen are from chickens I raise myself, chickens that are raised on organic feed and are also free range.”
Organic photos — who would have thought?
Preparation of albumen paper begins with fresh eggs — only the clear white is used.
“The paper stock I use is a lightweight rag stock of exceptional quality and purity,” Franco explained. “The rawstock needs to be thin enough to remain pliant when coated with a layer of dried albumen.
“Sensitization is accomplished by floating the albumen paper on a silver nitrate solution for two to three minutes,” he said. “Paper sensitized on a plain silver nitrate solution yellows (by the spontaneous reduction of metallic silver) within one or two days, so sensitization, printing and processing are usually done on the same day.”
Franco does have conflicting feelings about the longevity or permanence of albumen prints.
“Unfortunately, albumen prints as a group merit the urgent concern and attention of conservators,” Franco said, citing research from the Getty Museum in California. “Very few survive in original condition.
“Approximately 85 percent of extant albumen prints suffer from the presence of a yellowish-brown stain in the highlights (non image areas), and almost as many exhibit overall image fading, with an accompanying shift in image color from purple or purplish-brown to a sickly yellowish-brown. Deterioration often includes a partial or severe loss of highlight detail. The staining, fading and color change may range from slight to very severe, but the extent of deterioration In albumen prints as a whole Is much more advanced than in nearly every other variety of photographic paper, including types which pre-date albumen papers.
“Albumen prints are produced by a ‘printing-out’ process meaning no chemical developer is necessary,” Franco continued. “This has some important consequences for the appearance and permanence of the resultant prints. The fundamental silver image particles produced in all silver printing-out papers are very much smaller than the image particles produced by the action of a chemical developer. Because of the phenomenon known as light scattering, after fixation the smaller image particles of printing-out papers do not appear neutral black, but instead appear brown, red or even yellow.
Franco moved to the Peñasco area in the 1990s after serving in the military.
“I’ve always been fascinated with cameras and took a lot of photographs in the military,” Franco said. “But really got serious about my photos when I moved to New Mexico.”
Franco was stationed in the Middle East and in Central America, and for a few years after retiring, served as an advisor before totally severing ties with the military and taking up the life of a civilian full time in the late 1980s. Returning to civilian life gave him a chance to do something he’d always wanted to do.
“I had traveled a lot in the military, but never really got to see the country I was defending all those years,” Franco said. “So I bought an old school bus, fixed it up so I could live in it, and traveled around the United States for about a year. I went to every state except Hawaii, which I had been to in the military, and after being all over the country, decided that New Mexico felt the most comfortable to settle down in.”
He bought a parcel of land and lived in his bus until a small, energy efficient house was completed.
“I felt really comfortable living in my bus for a year, but by the time I finished my house, I was ready to be living in something that was firmly attached to the ground.”
And having amassed hundreds of rolls of film during that year on the road when a darkroom wasn’t available or easily accessible, an essential part of his new home was a darkroom.
“I had used a darkroom in the military, but to have one of my own was like having my own personal chapel or meditation space,” Franco said. “When I go in there and close the door, the outside world seems very far removed, which was especially nice during the last election and the pandemic.
“People believing in conspiracies involving the election and avoiding being vaccinated against COVID, simply put, it was depressing. I thought to myself, ‘Where has common sense gone?’
“So being able to go out and photograph nature, and then come back to my darkroom and work on images, it was therapeutic to say the least,” he said.
Technique
“I try to keep my compositions as simple and uncluttered as possible,” Franco explained. “Generally speaking I’m not trying to make any philosophical or environmental statements other than, at least for my nature images, that I love nature and try to pass that on to whomever I meet.
“I suppose one could assume that I’m trying to get people to pay more attention to global warming and its effects on nature and wildlife, but to be honest, I think either people are aware of the problems and they have a love and respect for nature, or they deny the existence of global warming and don’t think any further than their own welfare.
“That might have sounded a bit preachy, eh?” Franco asked. “It wasn’t meant to be, jut ranting a bit. I do that some times when I’ve not been out taking photos or working in the darkroom as much as I should.”
But it’s the darkroom where Franco really is in his element.
“When I take a photograph or series of photos, I have an idea of what I want the final print to look like, but until I’m in the darkroom working with a particular image, a final print seems rather hazy to me,” Franco explained. “When the image starts to appear on the paper, that’s when the subject really comes alive for me.
“In terms of my albumen prints, I have always appreciated the shaped borders you find on some of them, you know, the lower portion of the print is squared off and the upper portion is domed shaped,” France said with a smile. “That is so retro and period-like, but I don’t use that for all of my albumen prints, just selected images.”
One of my “selected” images, which Franco has printed before, is the one of trees and fallen trees taken in the bosque along the Rio Grande in Albuquerque. Although Franco said he’s trying to avoid “statement” in his photo- graphs, this image does come very close to passing on an environmental message to its viewers.
“The vertical format and the bob filled with fallen logs or branches in the fore- ground really called out to me for that rounded, arch-topped border for some reason,” Franco mused. “I think a part of me remembered historical photos I had seen of logging operations in the Pacific Northwest in the early days and coming across the scene in the bosque brought those memories to mind.
“Speaking of old photos,” Franco added. “The stereographs have always appealed to me, also. And although there are two images side by side in a stereo- graph, they also have rounded tops, similar to the round top border I sometimes use with my albumen prints, which might also help explain the border’s allure to me.
”
Franco’s mantra of “simple and uncluttered” is echoed in a number of his images. Take for example the group of burned trees along the High Road to Taos, which he photographed between Ojo Sarco and Peñasco. There is an almost perfect symmetry to the trees standing side by side, as if by attention.
You stare at the trees and the trees stare right back at you.
“It was as if the trees were posing just for me, a group portrait if you will,” Franco said. “As I passed by I noticed that all the trees were blackened by a relatively recent fire. What impressed me the most, however, was the fact that they all had fresh green growth and had resisted the ravages of the fire.
“To me it is a nice, simple testament to the resiliency of nature.”
Although Franco’s subject of choice is nature, he strays from time to time. One such example is the vertical image of a cross in the San Rafael Del Guique Cemetery.
The cemetery image is vertical and the main subject is a large cross in the foreground with a number of others nearby, but appearing much smaller.
It has a moody, brooding quality that seems perfect for the subject matter.
“Perhaps I’m morbid, or it might be the fact that I’ve lost a lot of comrades while serving in the military, but when- ever I pass a cemetery, I often stop to pay my respects,” Franco said. “In this instance, the cross against the brooding sky beckoned me.”
Final thoughts
“Like I said, working with the albumen process helps me connect in some way with the early photographers,” Franco said right before his visit with Rio Grande SUN Arts ended. “Knowing I’m working in an area that was popular during the 1800s is cool. It’s sort of like I’m doing genealogical research, but of a visual kind, where I am looking for things a long lost relative may have done during his or her lifetime and replicating those things — in this case the albumen printing process — which ties me in with those long lost ‘relatives’ I never knew.”
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