Slow Progress

My apologies for the dead spot. I have not lost interest in writing about hand coating processes. I have once again begun printing, after a thirty year hiatus. Life cares little of your best lain plans or your intentions. For me, there was that dead spot inside from not having time nor facility to further printing. Until very recently, when I stumbled upon the darkroom photographers group. The facilities are not the problem for me. It remains the sporadic opportunity to drive entirely across town, for a scant few hours to print when everything lines up for all involved. The drive apart town part is far more disruptive to the constitution than anything else.

I posted an image of "The Flute Player" in an earlier post to show a sample of what gum printing can achieve. As I explained in that post, I stopped the printing where I did as it was a test print and never intended for exhibition, as well as the fact I intentionally pushed the boundaries of printing to see more exactly where said boundaries lay. Now I know. The winning note to the print is the tonal scale. That is the important point to be made. The tonal scale of the negative I used to print that image is beyond the density range that common wisdom dictates. Makes a huge difference in the print.

The arrangement with the darkroom use is predicated upon my teaching the nice gentleman who makes said darkroom available to the group, hand coated processes. As I have mentioned in an earlier post, I do not believe in academic teaching of photographic art. No good has come of that experiment. In taking on a student of the hand coated processes is in my mind the natural path of learning photographic art techniques. The student should select the teacher based upon the student's desire to learn what the teacher has demonstrated through a print portfolio.

We began with the gum print. On the one hand, it is one of the easier mediums to deal with, as far as chemical needs and processing demands. On the other proverbial hand, it is the most difficult to master, as gum printing allows for the most personal expression into the printing process. No other photographic medium allows for as much personal interpretation as gum printing. Period. Whereas printing with precious metals, or other light sensitive chemicals of the hand coating family, each has some leeway towards the final print. However, what remains constant, is the actual process itself. Get that out of kilter and it shows up in the print. The order of the printing process is not open for rearranging. What controls there are has to do with print color or tonality, depth and density range. In gum printing, there are few controls for ordering a print arrangement, color choice each layer, order of the color layer, print time, float time, gum viscosity and other more subtle variables. The outcome of the print is entirely the choices made by the printer.

Having just begun this endeavor, it remains in the very early stages of application. I am currently working on adapting a workshop into a printing room, getting water and drain line hooked up, UV light printing frame made up and other awesome things ahead. I will be taking snaps of things as they come on line or apply to a blog subject. Once I have had more time for testing, all of which will take place at the nice darkroom across town, I will begin writing about and posting images of the salted silver and Kallitype printing processes, both of which I am actively working with. Once I am able to replicate the prints exhibition quality each time for each silver process, I will begin to tone them in platinum/palladium, thereby turning them into platinum/palladium prints. The nobler metal salts, platinum/palladium, replace the silver salts of the print, thereby making them pt/pd prints. That increases their archival quality and viewing life from somewhere between 100-200 years to 500 years or more. That is worth writing about.