40" x 60" silver gelatin prints

Silver gelatin printing is considered the high water mark of black and white film photography printing process. The silver gelatin process was introduced in 1871 and has remained largely unchanged since its introduction. The process involves using purpose made paper (either resin coated or fiber based paper) with a light sensitive silver salts suspended in a gelatin coating on the paper surface. A black and white film negative is used with a projector (enlarger) to project the image onto the light sensitive paper. Once the projection is made, the light sensitive paper is run through a chemical process that fixes the image in the paper, and the print is washed and dried. All of this is done in complete darkness in a darkroom.

In January 2017, producer Kris Regentin and printer Neil DaCosta worked together in a custom built darkroom to produce 20 total 40"x60" silver gelatin prints from 11 negatives from Charlie's collection. The prints are quite unwieldily, but also striking and beautiful to see in person. The follow video shows some of the process used to produce the prints.

Details:

39 hours printing, over 5 days

We selected 11 negatives to print

100′ x 50″ roll of Ilford glossy fiber paper

60,000 sq in total of paper

12 gallons of developer

6 gallons of fixer

5 gallons of stop

5 gallons of hypo clear solution

yielding 15 prints at 60″ x 40″ and 5 prints at 40″ x 40″