Half way between San Francisco and Los Angeles is the town of Cambria. This part of the Californa central coast, like much of the area around Big Sur, has dramatic and rugged coastline. This photo was taken with the Rollei SL66 and 150 mm Sonar. The combination of tilt with medium telephoto has always provided one of my favorite perspectives. Tmax film was used for this image, which I print with Eboni-6 carbon pigments in an Epson 7500 or 1800.
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Most of my latest black and white printing inksets and workflows use 100% carbon pigments, avoiding the weaknesses inherent in having any color pigments or dyes in a B&W print. These inksets produce the most lightfast and stable inkjet images, in the league with silver prints.
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How long will these carbon-pigment B&W prints last? No one knows for sure, but it's probably best measured in centuries. For the best stabillity, 100% carbon pigment is the meduim of choice. While inksets with some color pigments in them -- the vast majority of B&W inksets -- may last a long time, the color pigments will fade more quickly than the carbon, and they will fade at differing rates, resulting in color shifts in the print.
Carbon pigments on cotton (rag) paper should be even more stable than the traditional wet darkroom prints due to the buffered paper that has never had to deal with acidic processing chemicals like the wet darkroom prints. Carbon pigment writing inks have been found that are over 30 centuries old. The first image-forming use of carbon pigments may be in the Paleolithic Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc cave in France. They look rather good after 30,000 years.
So, while it is true that not all carbon pigments are equal, the carbon-carbon bond is nature's strongest, and the best carbon pigments are probably our best B&W image-forming substance, while the best substrate remains high quality cellulose -- for example cotton/rag paper. As such, I describe my medium as "carbon on cotton," and I think it is the most archival photographic medium we have available to us.
For an index of specific ink and printer information, including details of the inksets, settings, and curves, click here.
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All Photographs -- Copyright 1980-2008 Paul Roark -- All Rights Reserved