Although the 'Autochrome' process is not a a focus of The Light Farm,
it is a fascinating and inspiring story of historical detective work.
Many people have worked on the Autochrome puzzle over the years,
attempting to re-invent industrial secrets the Lumière
brothers took to their graves. Great progress is being made.
Inspirational, yes, but also a lot of fun to follow, and proof that
there is no such thing as 'impossible' in art and science.
Bertrand Lavèdrine has published a book in
French covering what is currently known about the process,
l'autochromes lumière. The book is not currently available in
English, but another book by Lavèdrine has
been recently published in English by The Getty Conservation Institute.
It is an excellent resource and very much worth the price for anyone
interested in historical photographic processes, particularly collection
and preservation. There is a short chapter on Autochrome.
I've taken the liberty of copying one of the pages. Consider it my
strictly unpaid endorsement of the book and the excellent work done by
Getty.
Much of the information for contemporary Autochrome work comes from a
limited number of historical sources. One to the best is The
History of Three-Color Photography by E. J. Wall, 1925. It has
been on my short list of historical references, not available from
Google books, to get scanned and posted on TLF. The chapter
specifically referencing the Autochrome process was just the excuse I
needed to sit down at the scanner. I'll try to get the rest of the book
finished within a few months. The History of Color
Photography by Joseph Friedman, 1947, is available from Google.
The entire book is well-worth reading, but for Autochrome information
particularly Chapters 7 and 12-14. The Wikipedia entry on
Autochrome has listed a number of interesting sources of information,
and a Google search turns up even more.
In addition, on APUG, an internet forum devoted to analog
photography, there is this thread: http://www.apug.org/forums/forum42/71151-autochrome-recipe-metropolitan-museum-art.html
dwr: 02/04/10
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