Vandyke Brown is a relatively simple and accessible historic photographic printing process. Could a small change in the way you prepare and store your Vandyke Brown chemistry help it last longer and reduce waste? Brittonie Fletcher revisits this familiar photographic process and offers a simple rethink of the traditional workflow. Rather than mixing a larger batch that may eventually go to waste, this approach keeps things separate and mixes only what is needed. The result is a practical, economical way to make the most of the chemistry already in your darkroom.
Read the SDS (Safety Data Sheet) before attempting to use chemicals and use the correct safety equipment.
Vandyke Brown is often recommended as an accessible beginner’s introduction to historic photographic printing. Its warm brown image colour, relatively straightforward chemistry, and forgiving printing characteristics have made it a favourite for beginners and experienced printers alike. Yet many published formulas ask the printer to prepare a single bottle of mixed sensitiser, despite the fact that its working life begins to decline once the individual components are combined. Many kit manufacturers recommend a shelf life of about six months.
This article proposes a small but practical revision to that familiar workflow. Rather than introducing a new formula, it reconsiders how the chemistry is stored and mixed. The proportions remain faithful to established Vandyke Brown practice, but each component is kept as a separate stock solution and only combined immediately before coating the paper. The result is a methodology that extends the useful life of the chemistry, reduces waste, and makes use of reagents that many alternative process photographers already have in the darkroom.
Design Criteria
This revised methodology grew out of decades of teaching, studio practice, and an effort to simplify the chemistry without changing the process. It was guided by four practical aims:
- Extend the shelf life of prepared stock solutions.
- Reduce the number of bottles or specialist process kits in the darkroom.
- Maintain image quality comparable to established Vandyke Brown formulas.
- Introduce an approachable drop-count workflow that can be applied to other alternative processes.
Why Change the Method?
Traditional Vandyke Brown recipes typically combine ferric ammonium citrate, silver nitrate, and tartaric acid into a single sensitiser that is then stored in a brown bottle. While perfectly functional, the mixed sensitiser gradually loses activity over time, with many printers finding that performance begins to diminish after several months.
Instead, this method stores each ingredient independently:
- Ferric ammonium citrate is kept as the same stock solution used for cyanotype (approximately 25%).
- Silver nitrate is stored separately as either a 12% or 15% solution.
- Tartaric acid is prepared as its own stock solution and stored in a brown bottle with an eyedropper.
Keeping these solutions separate means they remain stable for considerably longer than a premixed sensitiser, and only the amount needed for a printing session is prepared.
There is another practical advantage. If you’re an avid alt-pro-er and already print cyanotypes and/or salt—or plan to—you likely have most of the chemistry on your shelf. Rather than purchasing and storing a dedicated Vandyke Brown kit, this approach makes better use of materials already in the studio, reducing cost, shelf space, and duplicated chemistry.
Mixing by Drop Count
Instead of preparing a large bottle of sensitiser, mix only enough chemistry for the prints you intend to coat. For an 8 × 10 inch print, the following drop counts have worked reliably in my practice.
Using a 12% silver nitrate solution
- Ferric ammonium citrate: 27 drops
- Tartaric acid: 25 drops
- Silver nitrate: 24 drops
Using a 15% silver nitrate solution
- Ferric ammonium citrate: 28 drops
- Tartaric acid: 26 drops
- Silver nitrate: 20 drops
Mix thoroughly and coat the paper as you would with any standard Vandyke Brown sensitiser. Dry, expose, clear, fix, and wash using your usual workflow.
Don’t Worry About Counting Every Drop Perfectly
If you’re new to mixing chemistry by drop count, don’t be overly concerned with achieving perfect numerical precision. Anyone who has mixed cyanotype sensitiser knows that a “1:1” ratio is never literally identical—drop sizes vary slightly with bottles, droppers, and even the angle at which they are held.
What matters is consistency rather than perfection.
This makes Vandyke Brown an excellent introduction to drop-count mixing. It encourages preparing only what is needed, minimises waste, and offers a flexible workflow that scales easily from a single print to a larger printing session.
Designing with Intention
This revised methodology is not presented as a replacement for traditional Vandyke Brown formulas, nor as the only way to work. Rather, it is an invitation to reconsider how we organise chemistry in the contemporary alternative process darkroom.
Many photographers now move comfortably between cyanotype, vandyke Brown, kallitype, and other iron-based processes. By thinking of these processes as sharing a common chemistry rather than existing as isolated recipes, it becomes possible to reduce duplication, simplify storage, and make more intentional use of the materials already at hand.
Sometimes the most useful innovation is not inventing a new formula, but redesigning the way we work with an established one.
World Anthotype Day
World Cyanotype Day
Great idea!