The Platinum Photography Edition

On process, matte, and tonal range

Matt Locke (ML) is a WITI reader and the Director of Storythings, a content studio in the UK. He previously wrote the Andy Warhol Album Covers Edition, The Call Sheet Edition, and the TV Schedule Edition.

Gathering Water Lilies by Peter Henry Emerson, 1885-86

Matt here. Back in the early 90s, when I was at Glasgow School of Art studying Fine Art Photography, I was lucky enough to be taught by Mike Ware, one of the leading scholars of alternative photographic processes. These cover pretty much every method of making a fixed chemical photograph that isn’t the usual silver gelatin process. Some of these you may be familiar with from museum visits, such as blue cyanotypes, or daguerrotypes fixed onto a mirrored surface.

But for me, the most interesting alternative photographic process was Platinum or Platinotype photography. This process was one of the last to be commercially viable, almost 50 years after the initial invention of photography in the 1830s, but became the method of choice for every major photographer of the early 20th century, including Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Weston, Paul Strand, and Imogen Cunningham. Yet despite its popularity amongst these photography giants, it fell rapidly out of favor, and by the middle of the twentieth century, it was virtually forgotten.

Why is this interesting?

If you’ve been lucky enough to see a platinum photograph up close, the first thing you’ll notice is the incredible matte quality of the image. This is because, unlike silver gelatin prints that hold the chemicals in a layer on top of the paper, platinum photography uses chemicals that are soaked into the paper, so the image lies embedded in its fibers. This means the paper quality needs to be incredibly fine unless the artist wants the paper texture to be part of their aesthetic.

The tonal range of platinum photography far exceeds silver gelatin—the images seem to have an infinite range of tones, noticeable not in the darkest or lightest areas of a black-and-white print, but in the shades of grey in between. They have a depth and fine detail that is subtle, yet almost hyper-real—platinum prints give an incredible feeling of presence, as if you are looking through a window onto the scene.

Platinum prints are also by far the most stable and permanent of all photographic processes. If properly processed and printed, the images will retain their deep tones and detail for hundreds of years, much longer than silver gelatin or any other processes. In fact, any discoloration of platinum prints over time is more likely to be caused by the degradation of the paper than the photographic image itself.

So why, if this method of photography was so obviously superior, did it fall out of fashion so quickly?

The first reason is linked to one of the drawbacks of platinum photography. Although the resulting images are far superior, platinum does not react as quickly to light as silver. This means that you can only make an image using the contact printing technique, in which the negative is in direct contact with the photographic paper. You can’t take a small negative and project it onto the paper, as you do with an enlarger for silver gelatin prints.

When we made platinum photographs at Art School with Mike Ware, we used a plate camera to make 8”x10” negatives, then used a hinged contact frame to hold the negatives and paper in registration. We developed the image using the sun, holding the frame in the light, periodically lifting it to check if the image had darkened enough for a good print, and then taking it back into the darkroom for fixing.

For photographers like Weston and Stieglitz, who lugged their large format plate cameras across America, this wasn’t a problem. But George Eastman’s invention of the Kodak Brownie in 1900 brought photography to the masses, using a roll of 2.5” square negatives, far too small for contact printing. The rise of 35mm cameras in the 1920s, with a negative roll only 1.4 inches wide, made contact printing even less realistic, tipping photographers away from platinum towards silver gelatin prints.

A Street in Bellagio, Alfred Steiglitz, 1895-96

The second reason for its demise was not related to photography at all, but the chemistry behind it. Throughout the 19th century, photography pioneers experimented with different metals and chemical reactions to create halides that were sensitive to light. But others were experimenting for less aesthetic reasons. In 1902, the German chemist Friedrich Wlhelm Ostwald discovered that platinum was a very effective catalyst for making nitric acid, a key ingredient in most chemical fertilizers. Unfortunately, nitric acid, which had previously been generated using imported salt petre, was also used in the production of explosives.

As a result, the British government outlawed the use of platinum in photography during the First World War, declaring it a strategic military resource. By the end of the war, its value had risen five-fold, making it uneconomic for all but the richest photographers.

So platinum photography, by far the most beautiful and long-lasting of all the photographic processes, had a brief moment in the sun before its demise, caused by the very same forces - mass consumerism and warfare - that would shape the rest of the twentieth century.

(ML)

Quick Links

• Mike Ware’s site is a treasure trove of deep research and downloadable guides to many alternative processes, including platinum photography. But do heed his warnings, as a lot of the chemicals involved are very dangerous to handle! (ML)

• Pradip Malde, also a graduate of Glasgow School of Art, worked closely with Mike to develop modern versions of these processes and continues to make and exhibit his beautiful platinum photography. (ML)

• The National Gallery of Art in Washington has a fine collection of platinum prints, including many by Alfred Stieglitz. (ML)

Thanks for reading,

Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Matt (ML) 

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