ABSTRACT
Sensitivity of platinum salts to light was rst noticed and recorded by Ferdinand Gehlen in 1804. Sir John Herschel and Robert Hunt experimented further with platinum, but in 1859 C. J. Burnett was the rst to exhibit platinum prints. William Willis received the rst patent on a platinum printing paper and began to manufacture it under the name Platinotype in 1879. Soon, ready-made platinum and palladium papers were generally available throughout the world. e former was very popular with the Pictorialists, members of the Linked Ring Society and the Photo-Secessionists, which included such photographers as Paul Strand, Clarence White and Alfred Stieglitz. ese photographers valued ready-made platinum papers for their long scale and subtle richness of shadow areas. Edward Weston used Palladiotype – a commercial palladium paper manufactured by Willis and Clements – to photograph Mexico in 1923. In 1937, when the high cost of the metals made both platinum and palladium papers too expensive to produce, they were phased out in favor of cheaper silver bromide. Nevertheless, many photographers today continue to work with these processes. Other than the color dierences, the processes of the platinum and palladium technique is identical. Platinum images can range from a cool gray-black to split tones of brown. Palladium prints usually range from warm black to very warm brown. Many people mix the two metals to produce a warm brown and to cut the cost of the more expensive platinum metal. ey both have superb tonal range and archival properties and are said to be the highest-quality processes in photography.
