A SHORT HISTORY OF THE PLATINUM PRINTING PROCESS
The search for a platinum printing process began even before the first
silver-based processes were invented, but it was nearly fifty years later
that a successful and permanent platinum method was devised. Permanence
of the photographic image was the major concern for early experimenters,
who were well aware that platinum's non-reactivity offered the potential
of far greater permanence than silver. John Herschel made photo-related
experiments with platinum compounds in 1831 - eight years before the appearance
of the nearly simultaneous but independent development of workable silver-based
photographic processes by Daguerre in France and Talbot in England. But,
at risk of oversimplifying a complex chemical question, the non-reactivity
of platinum that causes it to be so permanent makes the creation of a photo-sensitive
platinum process far more complex than one based on highly reactive silver.
Not until 1873 was a truly workable platinum print process described, in a patent obtained by William Willis in England. It would be another twenty years filled with further experiments and with a third related patent and the formation of a company to market his product, that Willis was able to supply a platinum printing paper that was "simple, beautiful, and lasting".
When this workable platinum process appeared, it swept the amateur artist-photographer community like wildfire. At the simplest visual level, platinum prints looked dramatically different from previous print media. In addition platinum prints provided (as they still do today) a longer tonal scale than most other photographic media with a greater ability to capture broad ranges of natural light.
Today after 70 years of silver paper's dominance of black and white photography,
platinum prints are thought of as an "alternate process" This
was not always so. By 1894 the Platinotype had become the dominant medium
appearing in major exhibitions of 'Pictorialists' (that is, fine art) photography
in both Europe and America. In separate essays, Alfred Stieglitz in America,
and P.H. Emerson in England, weighed in with the shared assertion that only
the platinotype and the photogravure could be regarded as fitting methods
for artistic photographic expression.
Another surprise to many is that during this golden age of the platinum print, hand coating was essentially unheard of. And still another surprise is that around the turn of the century, platinum paper was not especially expensive. The newly introduced high speed silver bromide papers, which could be used for enlarging, were priced almost exactly the same as Platinotype.
This changed though with the discovery that platinum could be used as a catalyst in the production of explosives. Suddenly, now that it was a military-industrial commodity, its price soared, and with the advent of the First World War the manufacturing of platinum paper stopped. This spelt the death of platinum printing. Fredrick Evans, today recognised as one of England's greatest Pictorialists put his cameras away and gave up photography altogether when this happened.