This is my physautotype page, update 08/12/2007
The PHYSAUTOTYPE
(Pronounced Fizz auto type)
The photosensitive agent of this process was fine tuned by Niépce and Daguerre in
1832 using the residue of lavender oil distillation.
PHYSAUTOTYPE
My experiments with the PHYSAUTOTYPE process up to 08/09/2007.
In early 2007 while researching the history of photography in Australia, I came upon some research on a French man called Niépce.
He and Daguerre in about 1832 made the first photograph using distilled lavender oil.
I became very interested in this process, and decided to investigate further.
Having searched the Internet for further information I found a website about Mr Niépce called Invention of photography
It shows a number of pictures of the early experiments of Niépce using distilled lavender oil, heated until tar and further heated until hard and brittle, the black mass is dissolved in alcohol, spread on a silver plate and exposed to sunlight in a camera obscura for about 8 hours and the photo was developed in white spirit vapours.
Sounded pretty easy, so back to the net to try and find more precise details of how to do it, Wrong !, very little more detail exited on the net.
Searching the net for rare books on old photography process's produced some results, but not much detail other than the basic PHYSAUTOTYPE process, so it was time to start experimenting my self
Back in the 1960's when I was going to the local tech school, I was a keen amateur chemist, but unfortunately my hardware has not survived the years very well and all that remained was a few test tubes and a spirit burner.
So I purchased at random a couple of small bottles of 100% lavender oil of unknown quality.
I Put some of the first brand X in a test tube cranked up the spirit burner and off we go, "Bubble bubble toil and trouble"
It did not take long and the oil was bubbling and giving off the "volatile stuff" , vapours.
Which I found out very quickly were very flammable, don't ask how I know this !
A flaming test tube was not my desired result, so after only a few more minutes I decided that I needed a much more controlled way of heating the lavender oil.
The spirit burner was using way too much spirit to be practical for heating for several hours, or days
.
.
Then it came to me, what if I tried an oil burner?
One of those ceramic oil burners that you find in a cheap $2.00 shop. ????
So off to the local shops, and luckily the first shop I tried had just what I wanted, the oil burner would hold two candles and had solid sides, as some had lots of holes and would let the heat out, and I discovered that there are two types of candles these things use, 4 hour candles and 9 hour candles. Of course I chose the nine-hour ones. So for a total out lay of $4.50 did I have the right hardware for the experiment? we shall soon see.
Now unless you really really really like the smell of lavender don’t do this in the kitchen !
I started with the first 15ml bottle of oil, after a couple of days all that remained of the oil was a very small amount of tar, well that was easy.
But after several more days of heating with a single candle, it would not dry the tar, so I decided to try the second bottle of 50ml of oil.
Again after a couple of days of heating , there was a small puddle of tar. which was wet and shiny looking
You need to angle the oil burner slightly, I used a coin, under the burner, to force the puddle to settle in a concentrated puddle against one side, the black tar residue has a habit of wanting to climb up the side of the burner and spread out.
This is were we enter the realm of guestermation, how much heat does it take to turn the tar into a dry and brittle mass, without charring the mass ?
I assumed that the "dry and brittle" state of the mass would be dull and dry to look at, like carbon black or soot.
I covered to the top of the burner to keep more heat in and put Two candles in the burner and let her rip.
With the extra heating of two candles more vapours were released and a few bubbles appeared on the surface.
After burning one pair of nine-hour candles the tar was still soft when touched with a wooden tooth pick, and had a bright wet and shiny look.
So I lit another pair of nine-hour candles, after about 4-5 hours the tar still looked wet, bright and shiny, but I had other things to do and had to stop the heating and blew out the candles,
As the surface of the tar was still bright and shiny and wet looking I "assumed" the tar had not dried out, I should have tested it with a tooth pick, as during that last 4-5 hours of heating it had turned brittle
As it turned out I left the tar in this "wet looking "state for a few days, when I found the time to return to the project , I was not pleased to have discovered that the mass had turned brittle, as I wanted that phase of the experiment to be tightly controlled.
As no more heating was required I scraped out the black mass, it weighed about 1.5 grams and was a precious item .
I scraped the brittle mass into a small bottle and added some alcohol, and with not much shaking the residue dissolved very easily. The mix was about 1.5% w/v, 1.5 grams in 100ml alcohol.
This was my first try, I just wet the glass plate with a thin coat of the mix using a brush, it dried very fast ! and it frosted, its hard to get a nice even coating, Just as a test I placed some thin wooden strips in a cross shape over the plate, you can see the basic shape of the cross, I placed it in the sun for about 1 hr 40 mins, some light got under the horizontal cross piece. Its very crude but its proof of concept
The next experiment was to try a contact print, so with a brush I wet a glass plate it dried and frosted .
I placed a normal film negative on the glass held on by clamps and exposed the plate in bright sunshine for about one hour and twenty minutes
Then placed it in a kerosene development tank MIX SIDE DOWN, 100ml of kero, the plate sat on 4 pvc rings, a plastic bowl covered with foil, covered tightly to build up some pressure, checking each 1/4 hour , for about 45 mins, I have since discovered the kero will wick up the pvc rings after about 2 hours, be careful !! as the Kero will remove the mix coating
Close up of plate, this is how it turned out, the square shapes are the clamp feet
With the aid of Photoshop I have made a POSITIVE it shows amazing detail
The plate out of frame, it was a bit hard to focus the digital camera
In frame with Mylar backing, you can also use a black background, I am very puzzled how Mr Niépce got grey scale in his pictures using a silver plate, as mine only go from frosty to clear , you can alter the shading of the picture by how you view it and how the light hits it.
26/09/2007
My latest experiments
One thing we do have in Australia is gum trees, the leaves are full of eucalyptus oil and burn like crazy in a bush fire and I have been wanting to try the oil. so I put 40 ml in the oil burner and lit a 9 hour candle, the oil was a well known aussie product, and in no time it had boiled down to a hard brittle black mass
This really surprised me as how fast this turned brittle, as the lavender oil took several days.
I did not weigh it as from the 40 ml there was not much residue -maybe .5 gram.
I scraped the brittle mass into a small bottle and added 50 ml of alcohol, and with not much shaking the residue dissolved very eagerly.
I wet a glass plate it dried and frosted the glass just like the lavender oil residue, so I was very hopeful.
I did not expose the plate to sunlight, I just placed it in a kerosene development tank, 100ml of kero the plate on pvc rings, a plastic bowl covered with foil., checking each hour ,for about 4 hours but the mix did not go clear, so I reasoned it does not work, I was very disappointed
Back to the Lavender oil
27/10/2007
Lens test
The next trick is to try and make a photograph using a camera obscura, not having any real camera lens's I tried an experiment with an ordinary magnifying glass, it seemed to pass UV ok. When the plate was developed , you could see the circle
15/11/2007
DON'T LAUGH
After giving much thought on how to make a simple camera this is what I came up with, its just the lens on the end of a cardboard tube, inserted into a block of foam with the glass plate taped on the back
I placed a black cloth over the "camera" to keep the light off the plate
I said DON'T LAUGH !!!
With a bit of careful focus you can get sharp images, If you look carefully you can see the image of my satellite dish, at which I aimed the "camera" of course its not the right way up, there is also some other reflection's in the shot to.
OK you can laugh now !
20/11/2007
UNFORTUNATELY, I have tried this experiment twice now and both failed, the first plate was exposed for about 1hr 30 mins, but it just turned totally clear in the D tank, for the second try the plate was exposed for about 9 hours, but it turned out really blotchy and useless. Will have to try again.
If you have any comments you can email me at EMAIL
Tips and tricks.
1 Only use 100% lavender oil
2 I believe that the ambient air temperature plays a part in this process
3 I believe the temperature of your plate plays a part in this process.
4 A book by Howard Effner on the process using ROSIN is available from Bostick & Sullivan
5 You need to experiment to find the ideal exposure and development times.