My salt printing has come to an abrupt stop due to gold prices …
The prices of noble metals such as gold, palladium and platinum has gone sky-high and without a noble metal toner, I’m not sure how to get the tone that I like from salt prints. And of course it’s not just about the tone. It’s about the stability of the print.
Noble metal toners are not available in the UK anymore and it seems that Tetenal has stopped making gold toner altogether. I have looked into making toner from gold chloride and from palladium, but the prices are silly. So I will have to wait until prices become more reasonable. Might be a long wait, I’m thinking given current events in the world … So I thought I would look at some pictures that use gold in one way or another.
The use of gold in photography has a long history principally as a toner but sometimes as dust suspended in banana oil or with gold reveals. In the modern era interest in gold was revived by Mike Ware through his Chrysotype process and Ellie Young, and through gold leaf printing on vellum by Dan Burkholder, Wendi Schneider, DG Shannan and Marcy Palmer.
Below I showcase a few pictures that caught my eye:
Sumptuous aren’t they?
