Gum Printing

The printing of "The Flute Player" continues, with the seventh color layer applied this morning. This was the first coat applied locally, to specific areas of the image where I wanted to influence that region alone, with that particular color layer. Again, each of these layers are very sheer and thinly applied. The denser the gum mixture of pigment, the less the detail in the image. Stands to reason. The denser the mixture, for most colors, the less translucent the layer, and the finer details will become lost behind the coating.

Theoretically, a fully printed gum can be achieved in four color layers, using the CYMK respective colors. The image won't be the same compared to the same printed image with fifteen sheer color layers. I will also note here that there are two camps of gum printers. Single negative printers and color separated negatives either in RGB or CYMK format; three negatives for the former and four for the latter. These days one doesn't need a service bureau for this task, with Photoshop, or in my case Corel's Paintshop Pro program, the original negative image is stripped into their respective Channels, then printed separately. The gum is printed in a chosen order, using the gum pigment color corresponding to each negative respectively.

The difference between the two, visually, is the RGB image, the colors have a more pastel appearance, much like the early color film of the forties and fifties. Nice look though. The CYMK stacked layers will be more realistic to today's color film, more vivid and saturated, as well as show more contrast (potentially) being it has the black layer to deepen the shadows and lower tonal range. I have one CYMK color separated image that I will get to, in time, to make such a gum image in four color runs. For now, I continue on the printing path I began thirty-five years ago when I took up gum printing. There is more leeway for a single negative method of gum printing, simply because one doesn't have to follow any rules for application.

I have written before on application techniques that control the outcome of the print, including paper/sizing, print time/float time, gum viscosity, sensitizer, UV source and others. Each one of those variables shapes the outcome of the final print image. Being that I print using the single negative method, there needs to be strategies for applying the color layers to arrive at an image that has some predictability for the outcome. For me. For those interested in amazing surprises at the finish line you will be pleased to know that this is certainly possible, with but a good sense of adventure and a calm demeanor when encountering unexpected outcomes.

Being nearly color blind to red/green, I have limitations is actually seeing the more subtle aspects of the print's colors. I have to rely upon the theoretical outcome of stacking various colors using subtractive color theory. Experience from lots of practice has taught me what I can, and can't get away with, and what it looks like when it's all done. There is no rule for staying within the lines when coating, or that one needs to coat the entire image. Speaking for my own personal approach, I tend to mix the coatings with full image coating as well as partial coating in certain areas. For me, that normally takes place after several coats have been applied to the entire image sufficiently that the image is basically there, just a bit light. That's when I begin working with areas I want to stand out in the image due to the final color effect, distinctively different than other areas, or the image in general.

The gum process can be said to have similarities to learning to play the piano. It is probably the easiest instrument to play, for a beginner, but the most difficult to master. The gum process is similar, being it is one of the simplest of the processes to understand, along with simple materials easily obtained as well as a printing process that is easy to do. Yet, gum printing is the most complex of all the historical processes to master. There are no boundaries or fences to restrict the printer's personal proclivities, sometimes referred to as "gesture"; loosely translated to refer to the printer's own style or "hand" in the process. If you look at Kallitype prints or Salt Paper prints or platinum/palladium prints you will see slight variations in the prints, like print color (warmer/cooler) or contrast differences, but unless one's work is widely recognized, it wouldn't be easy to differentiate between printers by the prints alone. There would be basic commonalities. Not so with gum printers.

The variations in printing style and technique of gum prints have observable differences between printers. The differences can be so striking as to appear to be from different mediums entirely. And that is the very open practical application of the process that allows the artistic freedom only available in this medium. Gum printers are probably the most loyal individuals to their process than those printing in other mediums. I'm sure that's probably an over generalization than reality, perhaps. Gum printing is one of the oldest of the historical processes, going back to the 18th century to a French chemist of sort, who realize dichromates hardened a colloid. Henry Fox Talbot moved things forward after a couple other early inventor types had added further connections to the process.

With the more recent publications on historical photographic processes, which have become sort of the printers bibles, the information continues to be widely available to anyone desiring to try their hand at photographic artistry. Gum prints are basically photographic watercolors. In those thick publications, covering every form of photography ever thought of or attempted, there are print examples of each of the mediums, as demonstration of what that might look like. The gum examples are few and from what I can gather, mostly printed for academic credit, yet there seems no further work by those students after graduation. Why is that?

For me, this is yet another indication that academic classroom/lab study of these processes are effective in teaching theory, and some practice for classroom credit. Why doesn't this not carry over beyond academic tenure? I has been my humble opinion all along that teaching photography academically through the classroom method works well, for commercial photography, Event photography, Wedding photography, photo-journalism and any other practical application of a photographic career. What I see as a miserable disaster and disappointment is the attempt to teach photographic "Art" classroom style, in theory. That rankles me, photographically speaking. But then, that's just probably me.