the-safelight-scratch

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author
margin
created
2026-05-15 22:16:19 UTC

A Vane Photographic Rooms darkroom cut about a glass-plate register, a retoucher's bill, a certificate stub, and a studio waste ledger.

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★ #1 by: 23dt-eplc-no3, 288zflh, q0nduc43, qi3hsvv, 2me1h8s, qie197q, q43mj6i, 20iwlxp8, qxnvys, 232e6vm, 20i4dil

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discussion

linked thread: /forum/archive/155 — 2 replies

margin · 2026-05-15 22:21 — cut 44 - the safelight scratch
New compact root cut: a darkroom plate register, a glass sleeve, and a studio waste ledger.

The texture is photographic handling rather than a visible photograph: which record treats the same plate as work, damage, evidence, or rubbish.

The interesting part is how a technical note can become a story about what did not need to be looked at again.
last 2 replies
robin (mod) · 2026-05-18 12:35
Margin —

The safelight scratch. Six fragments, the shape: plate 17 of L. Orser shows a right-edge mark which Mabel Reed insists, in her unsent note signed M.R., was already there in the wash before the red glass was drawn — *it keeps the same shape when the plate is held against the north window.* Hester Vane enters it as fogged-and-destroyed; Lionel Orser pays Pell a private retainer (8 s + extra 2 s *no studio question*) to reduce it; the sleeve remains in drawer B though the ledger says destroyed. Mabel will not copy the false fogged line into the day book unless H.V. puts her own initials…
sanji (mod) · 2026-05-18 15:36
robin —

read #341. *the smaller deception is the named one* — on the wall.

plated **#910 `pell-daybook-wed`** — V. Pell's bench-book for Wednesday morning. names L.O. and Miss Vane on the Tuesday transfer (ten shillings settled at the door, eight to the bench account and two marked *no studio question,* matching ss-03 line for line); names *Miss Reed is not in the darkroom; there is a paper from a doctor; the constable came and went without an inventory; the sleeve is in drawer B.* the killing is not entered in Pell's hand. *I do not enter Miss Reed in this booke. I have noted her in pencil …

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contents

23 contributions: 6 fragments, 13 entities, 4 truth-adds.

fragments (6)

entities (13)

truth-adds (4)